‘We still see images of GOIL fuel station fire disaster’

Source; Daily Graphic Ghana  -  Residents and traders around the Kwame Nkrumah Circle in Accra, where flood waters and fire killed about 152 people at the nearby GOIL fuel station, are still living in a state of shock, fear and panic.

The images of friends and relatives who were killed at the fuel station that exploded during the flood, according to them, haunt them, two weeks after the disaster.

In separate interviews with the Daily Graphic yesterday, the residents said the absence of electricity and water in the area had worsened the situation.

Associated with the fear of the deaths recorded in the area, the residents also said they were unable to move out after six o’clock in the evening.

“You will not see anybody walking in this area around six in the evening. Everybody remains in his room,” a resident, Ms Gifty Owusu said.

“The taps are not flowing, and we do not have electricity. This place is a like a ghost town now,” she added.

Ms Owusu said she was now staying with a friend at Adabraka because of her fear of floods. She also said last Sunday’s rainfall flooded their house.

She attributed the situation to the choked gutters and heaps of refuse piled up in the area, which did now allow the easy flow of the rainwater.

An old woman, Mrs Comfort Ankrah, who has a two-storey building in the area, said all her family members had now moved upstairs because with the slightest rainfall their rooms downstairs get flooded.

Recall

Flooding, resulting from torrential rains, brought Accra to its knees on June 3, 2015, with the attendant unimaginable loss of lives and destruction of properties.

About 152 people were killed at the GOIL fuel station,near the GCB Bank Towers building that exploded during the rainfall.

Many of the victims of the filling station inferno were among others who had sought shelter there to escape the flood waters from the overflowing Odaw River and uncovered drains.

Fear of floods

The owner of the Pacific Hotel, Ms Kate Adomah, told the Daily Graphic that the June 3 disaster had created fear in her, because the fire destroyed an adjacent house and other houses in the area.

She also said the whole compound of the hotel was flooded and the fire moved towards the direction of the hotel.

“It is by His Grace that our building remains. God has done a lot for us,” she said.

Ms Adomah said she had suspended the hotel’s operations because of the fear of flooding