Galamsey pit swallows 19; 14 feared dead

At least 14 persons are feared dead when a mining pit collapsed on them on Sunday in the Western Region. The Nsuta District Police Command confirmed that the trapped were among 19 miners when the incident happened following a downpour.

Five persons however managed to escape the fatal disaster in a mine located at Prestea-Nsuta. Two of the survivors are currently being interrogated by the police whilst rescue work is underway for possible survivors. This is the first incident of pit collapsing on miners since government declared war on illegal mining in the country months ago.

The Nsuta District Police commander, Superintendent Atsu Dzinaku who confirmed the incident to the media said the pit in which the victims are trapped is about 80 meters deep. Superintendent Dzinaku said the mine ” is a small scale mining site.” “We visited the site and the information we gathered through the Committee Chairman was that 14 were dead. We are trying to retrieve the bodies.

There were a few survivors,” he told Citi News, Those who escaped death are the eyewitnesses so they briefed us. They were coming out when all of the sudden they heard the noise which means the pit caved in. Those behind them were trapped. It is an old galamsey pit and they sneaked in to operate when this happened.”

-3news

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ABOUT: Nana Kwesi Coomson

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An Entrepreneur, Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporate Communications Executive and Philanthropist. Editor-in-Chief of www.233times.com. A Senior Journalist with Ghanaian Chronicle Newspaper. An alumnus of Adisadel College where he read General Arts. His first degree is in Bachelor of Arts - Political Science (major) and History (minor) from the University of Ghana. He holds MSc in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Energy with Public Relations (PR) from the Robert Gordon University in the United Kingdom. He is a 2018 Mandela Washington Fellow who studied at Clark Atlanta University in USA on the Business and Entrepreneurship track.

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