This very building is at the verge of collapsing
Some buildings in Weija risk collapsing as sand mining and stone quarrying activities, coupled with erosion that results from torrential rains on the Akoasa Mountain in the Ngleshi-Amanfrom constituency in the Ga South Municipality, have eaten way their foundations.
Continuous erosion from rainfall over the years has exposed the foundation of several buildings along the hill, leaving them a precarious situation.
A geological engineer with the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) warned in 2013 that road users and people living along the mountain were in danger of being swallowed to death by a possible landslide beneath the mountain.
Class FM’s Ridwan Karim Dini Osman, who visited the area on Tuesday June 7, as part of the Executive Breakfast Show’s Waiting Disaster series, reported that up the hill, the adverse effects of sand mining and quarrying were visible, with gullies on top of the hill left as remnants, while a number of buildings had the soil at their foundation washed away. “Anytime it rains, the erosion situation worsens and you can see the foundation of almost all the buildings. It looks like the buildings are just suspended up on the hill,” Ridwan reported.
Another worrying situation is the washing off of soil and stone particles onto the road each time it rains, “causing serious flooding, which makes certain parts of the area inaccessible to motorists”.
Most of the roads connecting the vicinity are tortuous and drivers spend hours in traffic when the roads get blocked by sand.
Ridwan also indicated that “most of the buildings were constructed by estate developers, and the current [situation] makes the buildings dangerous to live in”.
According to him, the existence of the Weija Dam is threatened by the current situation. “The nature of the settlement is such that the collapse of one building will affect all the other structures at the location,” he reported.
He observed from his interactions with residents that they lived in the buildings without realising the impending danger. “They looked helpless as the buildings have already been constructed and millions have been invested, so, for them, demolition is out of the question.”
Residents have, therefore, called on the appropriate authorities to deal with the situation as the year’s rains begin to avert an imminent disaster in the area.
