The Upper East Regional Minister, Stephen Yakubu has disclosed that a committee will be setup to investigate circumstance surrounding the death of nine miners who were trapped in a mining pit at Gbane in the Talensi District.
Speaking in an interview after a visit to the mining site, he revealed that the committee will investigate the cause of the unfortunate incident and also put-up measures and best practices which will prevent this incident from happening again.
He averred that, if some measures had been put in place, it could have prevented the unfortunate incident from occurring.
“When I visited the site,;I realized that the miners are local guys and because the pits are very deep,;when the miners are down there, they do not know what is going on.
“If they had built some barricades so that the water wouldn’t have entered the pits, this problem wouldn’t have happened at all. So, we are putting up a committee that will see to all that so that these incidents will not happen again.”
Stephen Yakubu
Giving an account of the incident,;he stated that it was not a collapse of a pit but rather the flooding of the pit caused by heavy rains the night before the incident.
“It rained heavily and the water basically was able to go through about two of the pits;because they are connected to each other and flooded the pits.”
Stephen Yakubu
Miners are registered
Mr. Yakubu disclosed that miners who were trapped are registered miners who have a license with which they operate with. He added their mining site is also registered and;their pit is 100 plus feet down, denoting a very deep pit.
The Regional Minister also disclosed that three more bodies are yet to be retrieved;from the pits as they are suspecting these number of persons are in there.
“With the updates that I have so far,;nine bodies have been retrieved and they are suspecting that there are three more person who are still trapped in these mining pits who are yet to be retrieved.”
Stephen Yakubu
According to reports nine miners who were trapped in a pit at the Moabok mining site have died.
The bodies were retrieved two days after a rescue mission by a joint security team together with officials of the National Disaster Management Organization, (NADMO).
Police indicate that the deceased were miners trapped in a pit at the Moabok mining site;following a downpour on the night of Monday, May 31, 2021.
Search still ongoing
In a media interaction, the Upper East Regional Police Public Relations Officer (PRO), ASP David Fianko-Okyere revealed that the search is still ongoing and that the police have assured of maximum security in the mining area. He added that no arrest has been made so far.
“The rescue mission started two days ago, but yesterday [Wednesday], we were able to retrieve nine of the miners who were trapped after the heavy rains. With the retrieval of the bodies, the police are able to confirm that they have died. The Municipal medical office came in to examine the bodies, and he pronounced them dead.”
ASP Fianko-Okyere
