Accra floods: ‘We issued storm alert at 5.38pm’

The Ghana Meteorological Service said it served notice of a possible storm at about 5.38pm June 3, but city authorities and disaster management agencies in the country failed to acknowledge it.

A heavy downpour in Accra claimed over 190 lives as a GOIL Fuel Station exploded at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle. There was a loud explosion at the GOIL Fuel Station at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle adjacent the GCB Towers during the torrential rains. Hundreds of workers had gathered in front of a Pharmacy Shop near the Filling Station for protection until the rains will subside, but met their untimely deaths after the explosion.

Several people were trapped indoors since the streets were flooded while the fire spread to where they were seeking refuge following a fuel leakage which covered the water.

Dozens of passengers in commercial vehicles as well as private cars which had gone to buy fuel as well as park for safety at the time of the flood, were also trapped and died subsequently during the explosion.

Speaking to Ultimate FM’s Eno Safo Thursday on the Top Issue, head of research at the Meteorological Service, Charles York stated categorically, “the weather warning was given at 17:38 GMT on the 3rd of June, 2015.”

“You give warnings and people do not even care whatever you are going to say. People do not even take warnings seriously,” he lamented.

York was also livid about the Ghanaian culture of dumping waste into drainages and building in waterways, conditions which have been cited for the perennial flooding in Ghana.

He, however, indicated that there would be no other downpour of such magnitude in the coming days.

“We are in the peak of the rainy season in June and we expect to get more rains but we don’t anticipate rain fall intensity that is comparable to this one, especially in the southern sector and the coastal belt.”

York assured that his outfit will keep issuing the warnings but emphasised that it behoved on Ghanaians to heed the caution.