Circle fire: Loose valves led to fatal explosion - GNFS reveals

The Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) said preliminary investigations into the explosion at the GOIL fuel station at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle that claimed over 100 lives have revealed that some valves were not properly tightened leading to the inferno.

The explosion and flood Wednesday evening led to the death of close to 150 people. Officials of the GNFS are yet to reveal the exact number of people who lost their life.

The deputy Public Relations Officer of the GNFS, Billy Anaglatey told TV3 that the failure to tighten the valves of the fuel storage bay by the fuel attendants allowed the fuel to float on the surface of the flood water, which came into contact with fire 100 meters away from the station.

“Our [GNFS] investigations continued and we realised that some of the valves were not properly closed so the running water was entering into the underground tank and because of density factor, it went under the fuel and pushed the fuel up.

“So the fuel was coming from the underground tank and the whole area was having the fuel on the surface of the running water.

“It is not all the fuel that comes out that was mixable with water...but it was a running water so it was able to move from the Goil Filling Station to over 100 meters, where it met a naked fire and traced it back to the filling station then the explosion happened".