Gas Explosion At Effiduasi

The compound house destroyed by the gas explosion.

Eleven people were injured when a gas cylinder exploded in a compound house at Effiduasi, a suburb of Koforidua in the Eastern Region.

The explosion, which occurred at 6 a.m. Friday, led to the destruction of four rooms of the compound house and property worth thousands of cedis.

Two of the injured, Kwame Asante, 50, and Kwame Atta, 57, have been admitted to the Koforidua Regional Hospital.

Two others, Moses Asante, 26, and Emmanuel Gyeki Amofa, 12, whose conditions were said to be critical, were, referred to the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra.

An eye witness, Beatrice Owusua, a tenant in the house, told the Daily Graphic shortly after the incident that Asante, a taxi driver, took a cylinder filled with gas from his room to be fixed to his taxi cab with registration number GW 5524Q.

She said unfortunately for Mr Asante, the cylinder fell to the ground at a spot where some children were heating water in a coal pot and it exploded, setting the place ablaze.

According to the eyewitness, Mr Asante normally removed the gas cylinder from his car after close of work and sent it to his room, for fear that thieves would steal it.

When the Daily Graphic visited the hospital, Asante and Amofa were being put in an ambulance to be sent to Korle Bu Hospital in Accra.

The New Juaben Municipal Chief Executive, Mr Alex Asamoah, and the Eastern Regional Co-ordinator of the National Disaster

Management Organisation (NADMO), Mr Ransford Boakye, visited the scene and told occupants of the four rooms that efforts would immediately be made to provide them with tents.