DISTURBING PHOTOS: Fire explosion at Madina, Accra

• Posted on October 8, 2017October 8, 2017
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

Reports trickling in suggest there is a huge explosion at Atomic Junction, close to the busy Madina Zongo Junction in Accra.

Images taken meters from the explosion show a huge ball of fire towering into the Saturday night sky.

Traffic on the main Accra Central to Aburi road has been diverted as firefighters battle the raging fire.

Eye-witnesses say the explosion struck when a gas tanker was offloading its contents at a station.

The fire instantly spread to a fuel station opposite the gas filling station.

Ferocious fireballs flew into the air changing the skyline and turning it into a hazy cloud.

Hundreds of residents in and around Madina, Atomic Junction and a section of the main campus of the University of Ghana, Legon are said to have fled their homes following the explosion that occurred at a gas station.

As pandemonium broke out, three people, said to be students of the University of Ghana, were knocked down by a commercial vehicle. The extent of their injuries is not certain.

But for the timely intervention of the police, the driver of the bus (picture below) would have sped away.

Joy FM’s Super Morning Show host Kojo Yankson has reported seeing one dead body at the disaster scene.

Eyewitnesses told him the person fell from the overpass when the explosion occurred.

The National Disaster Management Organisation and the police took the body away.

Some of the victims of the explosion are receiving medical attention at the Legon Hospital.

Residents who fled their homes after the explosion are gradually returning.

A downpour helped to reduce the intensity of the fire.

A fire officer named only as Tawiah, told Kojo Yankson a leaking gas cylinder caused a fire which triggered the explosion

He said the fire had been brought under control now.

According to Mr. Tawiah, the firefighters had not found many injured persons as initially feared,

Also, initial fears that students of the Presbyterian Boys Secondary School, Legon, and the University of Ghana, Legon may have been affected have proven to be unfounded.

Students of both schools are safe.

Meanwhile, Deputy Information Minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah and National Security Minister Albert Kan Dapaah were seen at the scene of the disaster.

-Joyonline