Dr. Ishmael Norman, President and CEO of the Institute for Security, Disaster, and Emergency Studies, has associated the dynamite explosion at Gomoa Buduuram in the Central region with negligence on the part of the construction company.
The dynamite explosion that claimed the lives of three market women and left 40 others in critical condition took place on Monday, October 14, 2024, as part of the ongoing road construction on the Kasoa-Winneba highway.
According to reports from GHOne TV‘s Yaw Boagyan, the contractor responsible for the dualization of the road was blasting a large stone at the construction site using dynamite. Unfortunately, the blast went wrong, resulting in the deaths of the three women on the spot. The 40 injured, many of whom are in critical condition, were rushed to the Winneba Trauma and Specialist Hospital, where they are currently receiving treatment.
Speaking on Starr Morning with Naa Dedei Tettey, Dr. Norman cites the road construction company’s negligence as the cause of this devastating dynamite blast. He added that since the area is a human settlement, the construction company should have considered warning and evacuating the people, which could have prevented such an accident.
“I think this is negligence on the part of the construction company if they were the ones setting the dynamite and explosives. Because in a human settlement, whenever you are going to do something like that, you have to at least warn the people in the area, and also evacuate them. Even if you have built a protective wall around the immediate area where you plan to do the explosion.
“For example, in the middle of New York, a high-rise would collapse and they would tell all the surrounding buildings because any damage that comes out of your explosion to anybody’s building or property, you are on the face of it, prima facie, you are responsible. So if you do not do that, you do not build a wall around the immediate explosive area, you do not evacuate the people, you do not warn the people, and you do not even wait, even if you do it at night, it will still result in the same kind of casualties, if not even more. So this is pure negligence on the part of the company doing the construction that retained the explosive experts to study explosives. This kind of thing should not happen and it wouldn’t happen in any civilized society,” Dr. Norman stated.
Source: Ghana/Starrfm.com.gh/103.5FM/Salimatu Nuhu