GHANA: An Israeli military search team and Ghanaian rescuers find 9 dead, 69 survivors in wreckage of collapsed building as an unknown number of people still trapped in the rubble

Record ID: 397543

  • Title: GHANA: An Israeli military search team and Ghanaian rescuers find 9 dead, 69 survivors in wreckage of collapsed building as an unknown number of people still trapped in the rubble
  • Date: 9th November 2012
  • Summary: ACCRA, GHANA (NOVEMBER 8, 2012) (REUTERS) RESCUE TEAM STANDING ON SITE OF COLLAPSED BUILDING VARIOUS OF PEOPLE WATCHING RESCUE TEAM WORKING MAN STANDING ON TOP OF A TREE WATCHING RESCUE TEAM WORKING ISRAELI RESCUE TEAM WALKING TOWARDS COLLAPSED BUILDING ISRAELI RESCUE TEAM GUIDE DOG ISRAELI RESCUE TEAM MEMBER CLIMBING ON TOP OF COLLAPSED BUILDING VARIOUS OF GHANAIAN MILITA
  • Embargoed: 24th November 2012 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Ghana
  • Country: Ghana
  • Topics: Accidents
  • Reuters ID: LVA42D2A0YNJR7SBENDOFJ55TX5H
  • Story Text: An Israeli military team arrived in Ghana on Thursday (November 8) to help search for survivors a day after a four-storey shopping mall collapsed in the West African state's capital Accra, killing at least nine.
    Officials said more people than initially thought were still trapped in the wreckage of the department store, which collapsed due to suspected structural failure, but they declined to provide an estimate.
    Ghanaian President John Mahama said the first 48 hours are critical and he was still hoping to reach more people trapped inside the collapsed structure.

    "Yesterday I accepted an offer for the Israeli government to send a team to come and assist our people and they have arrived here and I will urge them to work together with our people, collaborate and let's try and save any more lives that are left in the rubble," Mahama said.
    Accra is in the midst of a construction boom spurred by oil-fuelled economic growth, but building standards region-wide are generally poor and enforcement is often lax.

    "We are going to work with the institute of architecture, city authorities, to inspect all high-rise buildings and make sure they are architecturally sound. Beyond that we must certify that buildings are sound before they are put up," Mahama said.
    Ghana authorities initially had estimated that around 55 people were inside the building when it collapsed on Wednesday (November 7) morning, but that figure was based on the number of employees and did not factor in the number of shoppers too.
    By Thursday afternoon, emergency personnel had pulled out 69 survivors and recovered nine bodies from the building, which housed a mall operated by Indian retailer Melcom Ltd.
    The team from the Israeli Defence Forces used trained sniffer dogs, as well as heavy duty equipment to locate any remaining survivors.

    "We brought basically search machines, we're using sound, we're using vision, sound waves in order to look for people who are trapped inside. Basically we have equipment which is able to locate movement within a building," said the leader of the Israeli search team, Uri Kasav.
    The ambulance service shuttling victims from the site to a local hospital said survivors had sustained injuries of varying degrees of seriousness.
    President Mahama promised an inquiry into how the building's owner was able to circumvent building codes, after it was discovered that its construction had not been approved by city authorities.
    Investigators questioned an Accra building inspection director and a Melcom official on Thursday and were still seeking the building's owner, deputy Information Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa told Reuters.
    Running for election in December, Mahama cut short a campaign tour to visit the site.
    Melcom runs Ghana's biggest chain of retail department stores and has some 20 shops nationwide. It said it rented the collapsed building and had opened a store there in January.
    It said it was closing all its shops in the capital on Thursday as a mark of respect for the loss of lives.
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