MCE considers mass burial for charred victims in Kintampo tragedy
The Municipal Chief Executive for Kintampo North in the Bono East region, Michael Sarkodie Baffoe, has said he is considering mass burial for the charred victims in Monday’s tragedy.
“We don’t have any option, except to find out from the medical people if they have a way by which they can decipher one body from the other. Otherwise, we’ll have no option left to us than to visit what happened last year – mass burial. It’s quite unfortunate.”
At least 30 people have been confirmed dead in a road carnage on the Kintampo road in another avoidable tragedy in the Bono East region.
Eye witnesses say the two buses – a Yutong and a 207 Benz bus – collided head-on Monday dawn at about 4am.
The latest road crash has ignited fresh conversations about safety on the country’s roads. But ambulance officer, who helped convey both injured and charred to the hospital, has offered some explanations on what caused the latest accident which claimed scores of lives.
‘One bus carried petrol’ – Ambulance officer identifies three mistakes in Kintampo road carnage
According to Joseph, the Yutong bus driver some moments before the tragedy had broken through a police barrier. “They stopped them but he refused to stop.”
The ambulance officer, who has been identified as Joseph said he suspected the Yutong bus driver was sleepy in the 10-hour journey to Kumasi. The bus was carrying vegetables–tomatoes, pepper- to supply several markets down south.
He believed that if the Yutong bus driver had stopped at the police checkpoint, the dynamics would have been very different.
The incident on the Kintampo road became the third in three months, with the most recent one reported in February 2020.
Kintampo accident file
22 February 2020: Two women and a pregnant mother died on the Kintampo road when the vehicle they were travelling on crashed into a cargo truck carrying logs.
7 January 2020: Four family members died in an accident, involving a Mercedes Benz and a Yutong bus in the Kintampo Municipality. The 65-year-old driver and his newly married wife, son and brother died instantly.
4 November 2019; A two-year-old girl and a man, identified only as Michael, were killed in an accident in the Kintampo South District of the Bono East Region.
13 September 2019: Another gory accident on the Techiman-Kintampo highway at Tuobodom in the Bono East region claimed eight lives