Institute for Security, Disaster and Emergency Studies (ISDES) says the government does not have the necessary equipment to save citizens should Ghana experience an earthquake.
The remarks by ISDES follow a recent event of Turkey experiencing an earthquake which has claimed the lives of over 4,000 so far.
The death toll in Turkey following Monday, February 6, 2023 earthquakes keeps rising according to BBC News.
Ukraine has however sent 90 rescue workers and including 10 search-and-rescue dogs trained to find missing people to Turkey to take part in the earthquake rescue and clean-up operations.
Speaking in an interview with Starr News the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of ISDES, Dr. Ishmael Norman said Ghana may be handicapped in case of any serious disaster.
According to him, Ghana’s preparedness and capabilities should the nation experience an earthquake with the situation Turkey finds itself in now is very low.
“If there is an earthquake and there is a collapse like we’ve seen in the case of Turkey when buildings collapse in an earthquake. Even looking for survivors’ search-and-rescue will become difficult because even trained dogs to sniff where people may be buried under the rubble will be a very difficult thing. It will also be very difficult to predict when an earthquake will happen.
“So, NADMO is definitely in the same situation as most soul defense organizations in the world that cannot predict earthquakes. But what they can do is at least to prepare the community as to what to do and this is what is lacking,” Mr. Norman explained.
He continued: “Our government may not be capable of even finding after 12 hours to conduct an effective search-and-rescue mission. And most people die within the first 12 hours then it increases to 24 hours. If you are unfortunate and there is rain then of course the risk becomes even bigger. And the fatalities and the death tolls go up.
“Our skilled capacity, our staff strength, NADMO has 10,000 employees as I’m speaking to you now but I can tell you without a doubt that they don’t have even a 1000 people that have the capacity to do search-and-rescue, to provide first aid in case of mass casualty event such as earthquake.”
Source: Ghana/Starrfm.com.gh/Bernice Mensah
