Talensi: Driller, 35, buried alive in a mine

A driller has died at Gbani, a mining community in the Talensi District of the Upper East region, after he accidentally got buried alive under a stockpile of gold ore.

Thirty-five-year-old Samuel Bang, an employee of the Shaanxi Mining Ghana Limited, reportedly was drilling through the stockpile when the area he occupied suddenly caved in along with the heap of ore.

A rescue team dispatched to the scene of the disaster only retrieved his lifeless body after a tiring search that lasted about 24 hours. An autopsy report on his death is yet to be released; but it appears he got ‘drowned’ in a mass of gold ore. Public Relations Officer of the Shaanxi Mining Company, Maxwell Wooma, confirmed the incident to Starr News.

“It is purely a mining accident. It is not a case of gas inhalation where someone has failed to do hazards assessment. It is purely a mining accident. The body is at the morgue of the Regional Hospital. We (the company) are on our way to meet his (Samuel Bang’s) family to commiserate with them and to find out about burial and funeral arrangements,” Mr. Wooma said.

Previous accidents

The deceased is survived by a wife and two children. This is about the sixth time disaster has struck the company since May, 2013. Late in 2015, at least 16 small-scale miners working for the company were rushed to the Upper East Regional Hospital after inhaling what was suspected to be a poisonous gas from a mining explosive.

In April, 2015, two miners died and eight were critically injured from the gas of an explosive substance. Three miners lost their lives when a mining pit collapsed on them in October, 2014, in the area. On Wednesday April 2 of that same year, two miners were gassed to death and one severely injured. May 26, 2013, saw three small-scale miners suspected to be intruders from another concession perish when a gas from an explosive engulfed a tunnel that belonged to Shaanxi Mining Ghana Limited.

The cycle of mining tragedies in the area has continued to revive public concerns about the safety of the employees of the company, with the Upper East Regional Secretary of the Small-Scale Miners Association, Robert Tampoare, saying it is about time the company employed appropriate safety measures to avoid needless deaths in the future.

The company’s Public Relations Officer has been telling the media in the region adequate safety measures have been put in place and that the company has acquired an ambulance for any emergency.