Rail death toll up

Front page May 17/2008

Story: Charles Benoni Okine

THE death toll in last Thursday’s accident that occurred between Huni Valley and Kuranti on the western rail line has risen from seven to 11, with rescue workers still searching for more bodies believed to have been trapped under the wreckage.
The latest among the dead was described as an elderly woman who passed away in the early hours of yesterday at the Tarkwa Government Hospital. She is yet to be identified by her family.
Reports say all the deceased were unauthorised passengers, mostly traders who were not employees of the Ghana Railway Company (GRC).
About 23 others who received various degrees of injury have either been treated and discharged or still are hospitalised at the Tarkwa Hospital.
Speaking to the Daily Graphic on the tragedy, the Minister of Harbours and Railways, Professor Christopher Ameyaw-Akumfi, wondered why unauthorised passengers got on board a freight train that was not meant for passengers.
He said a committee had been set up to investigate the cause of the accident.
The two freight trains on the western rail line were involved in a head-on collision at about 10 a.m.
The trains, one loaded with bauxite and the other empty, were moving in opposite directions on the same rail line when they collided.
Meanwhile, the township of Huni Valley in the Prestea-Huni Valley District of the Western Region has been thrown into a state of mourning following the tragedy that also claimed a set of twins aged about two and half years, reports Kwame Asiedu Marfo.
Also identified among the dead are five adults made up of four females and a male.
The Western Region Minister Mr A. E. Amoah, and his deputy, Mr Kwasi Blay, and the Western Region Police Commander, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP) M.A. Alhassan, visited the accident scene on Thursday evening.
Many of the people, particularly women who thronged the accident scene, were seen weeping uncontrollably especially when the bodies of the two minors were retrieved from under the wreckage.
According to Mr Joseph Ernest Yalley, the Huni Valley Station Master, there was a break in communication between the Huni Valley and Kuranti Station on the western rail line.
He explained that the Ghana Railway Company had instituted a pilot working system where anytime there was a break in communication, a human being served as a pilot man.
He said the despatch of any train at the two stations depended on the authority of the pilot man.
"The pilot man was with me so I dispatched the train going to Takoradi Port, not knowing that the other station master at Kuranti had dispatched the other train without the authority of the pilot man."
Mr Yalley said the authorities had arranged for breakdown cranes from Dunkwa and Takoradi to clear the wreckage, which he said would take about two days.
One of the accident victims, Hannah Sarpong, who was treated and discharged, said they joined the empty train at Kojokrom near Takoradi, since they found it difficult to get vehicles to their villages along the rail line.
Mr A. E. Amoah said efforts would be made to ensure that the trains were immediately removed from the railway line to make way for other trains.