SALON

Sunday, Nov 11, 2012 12:15 PM UTC

Ghana: Rescuers still work in collapsed building

By

Topics: From the Wires,

Ghana: Rescuers still work in collapsed buildingA member of the Israeli forces that have been sent to assist in the Ghana relief efforts, climbs debris after a building collapsed in Accra, Ghana, Thursday, Nov. 8, 2012. Authorities on Thursday blamed faulty construction for the collapse of the five-storey building in Ghana's capital that killed at least nine people and trapped some dozens of others as search and rescue efforts continue Thursday. (AP Photo/Gabriela Barnuevo)(Credit: AP)

ACCRA, Ghana (AP) — Workers had congregated for morning prayers on the ground floor of the Melcom retail store in northern Accra Wednesday morning at around 9:15 when they heard a “boom, boom, boom” and the five-story building collapsed around them, trapping some 80 people under the rubble and killing at least 17.

“Next thing all I could see was darkness,” said Lawrence Darkwah from his hospital bed in Accra Saturday. While lying on the ground in the rubble, Darkwah heard an air-conditioner whirring and moved toward it, on the way coming across a head with long hair. He sat on the air-conditioner in the dark. Like many other survivors he couldn’t telephone anyone because he had followed protocol for the prayers and left his phone at the door.

Ghana’s National Disaster Management Organization cited structural weakness as the cause of the collapse of the store, which was being leased by Melcom Ltd., Ghana’s largest retail chain. Investigations are on-going, officials say.

Rescue workers from the country’s police, army and fire service, along with independent contractors and people from the neighborhood rushed to the scene Wednesday morning to search for survivors. The operation was chaotic, with bystanders blocking rescue crews and bulldozers digging into the rubble before it had been checked for bodies.

As a giant excavator tore into a pile of cement and metal wreckage, contractor Daniel Hani yelled: “No, no, no! He has to stop that!” When asked if bodies could be inside, he said, “There could be!”

Darkwah, the survivor, said he saw a crack in one of the building’s pillars the day before the collapse, and that he alerted his boss. “I told my branch manager. He later said it was checked and it was just a crack,” Darkwah said Saturday.

Vice-president Kwesi Amissah-Arthur declared the collapse a national disaster and Ghana’s president John Dramani Mahama interrupted his political campaign for reelection in December to help manage the rescue efforts.

“Whoever is responsible for this negligence … will pay a price,” Mahama told reporters after briefly visiting the site in Accra’s working-class Achimota neighborhood.

The president warned “that Ghana being an earthquake prone zone, the likelihood for many buildings of poor quality to go down in case of earthquake is high. We are going to put in place mechanisms to check the safety and security of other high-rise buildings and find out if there aren’t any more of such disasters waiting to happen.”

Authorities have detained several people following the collapse, including the building’s owner, Nana Boadu, and a municipal works official named Carl Henry Clerk, who allegedly knew the building was being constructed without a permit, according to Deputy Information Minister Samuel Ablakwa.

The building’s architect and engineer are also being sought by authorities, and one of Melcom’s managers was arrested and released on bail, Ablakwa said.

Ghana is undergoing a construction boom driven by record economic growth and authorities say this tragedy highlights the industry’s lack of regulation.

“This is a wake-up call to everybody” to upgrade country’s building code and enforcement mechanisms, said regional police chief Patrick Timbillah.

By Saturday, the scene was orderly and about half of the rubble had been removed. In areas that had been inspected for bodies, excavators were dropping heaps of debris into dump trucks.

The loud idling of trucks and machinery drowned out the possibility of hearing voices within the rubble. Ablakwa said rescue workers aren’t relying on voices to find anyone anymore. “If anyone is in there (alive), they are very weak,” he said.

Authorities still don’t know the number of people remaining inside, said Asomaning Odei-Mensah, the chief disaster control officer of the National Disaster Management Organization. The store management originally estimated some 55 people were inside but 79 have already been pulled out.

Some are surprised the death toll is not higher given the level of destruction.

Deputy health minister Robert Mettle-Nunoo told The Associated Press the rescue operation was eased by the fact that so many employees were in the same area, where they had congregated to pray.

Rescue efforts were also helped by a team of 18 experts from Israel who arrived Thursday with lasers and highly-trained sniffer dogs to help locate bodies in the ruins.

But by Saturday evening, not everyone had found their loved ones.

Twenty-five-year-old Matilda Atantues stood behind police lines waiting for word of her sister. She said on Wednesday morning Ruth Atantues, 22, a cleaner at Melcom, left for work at 7 a.m. and never came back. Matilda and other relatives have been to every hospital looking for Ruth, she said. After three days, Matilda was back standing in the heat on the busy thoroughfare next to the building’s ruins waiting for word. “After three days we are not ready to give up hope,” said Atantues. “It’s our hope that she is inside and OK.”

More Laura Burke.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Loaded terminology like "entitlements" and "welfare" skews the debate and alters America. How right-wingers use semantic tricks to kill government.
294 points295 points | 63 comments
vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
260 points261 points | 10 comments
vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the persecuted late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
200 points201 points | 1 comment
vote
Obstruction will ruin the GOP: Playing politics and abusing the system can excite the extremes, but it's a recipe for long-term political disaster
55 points56 points | 8 comments
vote
How right-wingers use semantic tricks to kill government -- "...much of the U.S. economic security support system consists of subsidies for the affluent in the form of tax breaks, like those for private retirement savings plans such as 401(k)s and private employer-provided health insurance."
44 points45 points | 3 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations