B/A plunged into darkness, GridCo substation destroyed by fire

A huge explosion, followed by damaging fire at a GridCo sub-station in Sunyani has plunged most towns and communities in the Brong Ahafo Regional into total darkness. Almost the entire region has been without electricity supply for seven hours now.

At least seven major towns in the region have been affected by the Thursday morning disaster that has destroyed the region's main transformer and control room as well as the feeder, officials have said.

The sub-station supplies electricity to Sunyani, Berekum, Bechem, Dormaa Ahenkro, Sampa, Duayaw-Nkwanta and Tepa among other towns and communities in the region.

Engineers of GridCo have been on site since morning trying to restore electricity to the affected areas, but officials are unsure when they will be able to fix the situation and restore power to the affected towns and communities.

The fire reportedly started around 10:00am with an explosion of an underground cable behind the sub-station. Two staffs of GridCo were knocked unconscious in their attempt to extinguish the fire.

Personnel of the Ghana National Fire Service managed to extinguish the fire within 45 minutes after which officials of GridCo went to the scene to assess the damage but did not give details to the media.

The Sunyani Municipal Fire Officer Adoi Karim Abdulai told TV they received a distress call at about 9:44am and within 10 minutes they were at the scene, noting "the control room was on fire and the entire place was in flames, very thick smoke.

"Before we could get into the room, we created ventilation by managing the glass and we also entered with a length of holes into the room," before they managed to extinguish the fire, he added.