TWENTY-ONE people lost their lives and many others sustained various degrees of injury in two accidents on the Accra-Kumasi and the Cape Coast-Takoradi highways, five hours from each other on Wednesday and Thursday.
The first accident, which occurred at Atwedie, near Juaso, at 11.30 p.m. on Wednesday, claimed five lives, with 46 injuries, while 16 people lost their lives and 32 sustained various degrees of injury in the second accident which occurred at Dompoase, near Komenda Junction, at 4.00 a.m. yesterday.
According to our Central Regional correspondent, it was quite a horrendous scene at Dompoase when a tipper truck loaded with chippings collided with an Accra-bound InterCity/STC Coaches Limited bus, killing 15 people on the spot.
The bodies of the deceased, including a soldier and a member of staff of the Ghana Commercial Bank, are in the morgue at the district and the regional hospitals, both in Cape Coast.
The deceased, who are yet to be identified, also include the drivers and the mates of both the InterCity/STC Coaches Limited bus and the tipper truck.
An official of InterCity/STC Coaches Limited gave the name of the driver as J. T. Kwafo, aged about 45.
Thirty three passengers who received various degrees of injury were rushed to the Central Regional Hospital in Cape Coast where they are receiving treatment.
Miraculously, a nine-month-old baby girl whose mother, said to be occupying seat number 17 on the STC bus, died, escaped unhurt and is on admission at the hospital for observation.
The accident, which left the STC bus mangled beyond repairs, led to a traffic jam that lasted almost two hours in the early hours of the morning.
The police at the accident scene indicated that the accident occurred when the tipper truck veered off its lane and rammed into the STC bus which had 48 passengers on board.
Between 5.00 a.m. and 10.00 a.m., people trooped to the scene and the Emergency Ward of the Central Regional Hospital to look for their relatives when the news of the accident filtered out.
Speaking to the Daily Graphic, the Assistant Divisional Officer of the Ghana National Fire Service at the Regional Headquarters in Cape Coast, Mr Anthony K. E. Edusah, said the service received a distress call around 4.00 a.m. and mobilised a rescue team to the scene.
He said as a result of the mangled nature of the STC bus, the team had to cut parts of the body before retrieving bodies and rescuing the survivors.
Information gathered from the Daily Graphic correspondent in Takoradi, Moses Dotse Aklorbotu, indicated that people started trooping to the STC Yard in Takoradi when they heard the news of the accident.
He said others also rushed to Cape Coast to find out about their relatives who were on board the bus.
At the Central Regional Hospital, some relatives could be seen wailing after they had been told that their relatives were dead.
Some doctors at the district hospital had joined their colleagues at the regional hospital to deal with the emergency cases.
The Emergency Ward was filled to capacity and some injured were seen receiving treatment on the floor and on the grass outside the ward.
The Hospital Administrator, Mr Adjei Frimpong, told the press that it was too early to comment on the conditions of the casualties, since the hospital was more concerned about saving lives than compiling statistics.
George Ernest Asare reports from Kumasi that the first accident occurred when a Kumasi-bound OA bus crashed into a DAF articulated truck.
Four of the passengers in the bus died on the spot, while one died later at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) where he, together with the other injured passengers, had been rushed for medical care.
The bodies of the deceased, who are yet to be identified, have been deposited at the KATH mortuary for autopsy.
About 46 passengers in the bus were said to have suffered various degrees of injury and are on admission at the Juaso Hospital and KATH where they are receiving medical care.
The driver of the bus, who was identified only as Onassis, was said to have suffered multiple fractures in both legs.
The driver of the DAF truck and his mate were said to have vanished from the accident scene and the police have mounted a search for their arrest to assist in investigations.
The Ashanti Regional MTTU Officer, Superintendent James Sarfo Peprah, who briefed the Daily Graphic on the incident, said initial investigations revealed that the articulated truck veered into the lane of the bus in a 'C' shape, completely blocking the lane of the oncoming bus.
He said the situation caused the bus to crash into the mid-section of the truck.
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