Three bodies, including four-year-old retrieved, after eight drowned in Volta Lake

Rescuers have retrieved three remains, including the body of a four-year-old girl, after eight people drowned in the Volta Lake at Afram Plains in the Eastern Region.

They were on board a boat carrying approximately 25 people travelling from Dzemeni in the Volta Region to Donkorkrom in the Afram Plains.

Some travellers dropped by at various nearby villages before the disaster occurred, but there were more than 20 people on the boat when the incident happened.

Locals in the area have indicated that the death toll could be higher as the exact figures for the people involved were not known.

A heavy storm on the lake capsized the boat, which was carrying mostly traders who were returning to their villages on Thursday. The navigator of the boat and his wife were part of the dead .

Locals who were mostly fishermen managed to rescue more than a dozen shortly after the incident.

The Afram Plains North District Director of the National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO), David Nyarko, who confirmed the incident to theghanareport.com explained, “About five (bodies) are still in the lake.”

The recovered bodies were that of a 62-year-old lady, the boat operator believed to be between 35 and 40 years old, and then a four-year-old girl.

“The navigator’s wife is still in the water. She was also in the boat and has not been found,” he lamented.

Three of the survivors who sustained injuries, and the corpses were all sent to the Donkorkrom Presbyterian Hospital.

Mr Nyarko explained that rescue efforts by NADMO officials and some local divers will continue on Sunday.

He said information gathered attributes the disaster to a windstorm but “the fault might have come from the navigator”.

This, he said, was because the boat had three outboard motors. When the travellers were hit by the storm one went off and the navigator turned off the other two.

“So they were (gliding) using the wind. A storm from another direction hit them and the boat capsised,” he narrated.

According to him, “They shouldn’t have offed the machine, but they were (rather) using the wind to sail.”