Thirty-five accident victims, who were burnt beyond recognition in last Friday’s gory accident on the Amoma Nkwanta road in the Kintampo South District of Bono East Region have been buried in a mass grave at Jema, near Kintampo.
The Kintampo South District Chief Executive (DCE), Alexander Gyan, and his counterpart for Garu-Tempane, Emmanuel Asore Avoka, arrived at the decision on the mass burial after consultations with some chiefs and opinion leaders in the two districts.
The bodies of 20 others who also perished in the accident will be handed over to their families after the necessary identification has been done.
Traditional rites
Meanwhile, reports say the chiefs and the people of the area where the accident occurred have also resolved to perform some traditional rites at the accident scene to prevent a recurrence.
The accident, which claimed over 57 lives, occurred early hours of last Friday was as a result of a head-on collision between two passenger buses.
Fifty-three passengers who survived the accident sustained various degrees of injury.
Condolences
After the mass burial, government and the assembly expressed condolence to the bereaved families and assured them of government support.
Various transport unions have also been advised to make it mandatory for long-distance vehicles to have two drivers, so that one could take over from the other if tiredness set in to avoid such fatalities.
Background
Last Friday, at least 90 people lost their lives, while many others sustained varying degrees of injury in two separate gory accidents at Amoma Nkwanta in the Bono East Region and Ekumfi Dunkwa in the Central Region.
In the case of the accident near Kintampo, 57 people died, including two drivers, while 53 others were injured, when two buses collided at Amoma Nkwanta on the Techiman-Kintampo highway in the Kintampo South District at 1.40 a.m.
The two buses were believed to be carrying about 60 passengers each, including children.
The VVIP bus was travelling from Accra to Bolgatanga, while the KIA Grand Bird bus was travelling from Garu to Kumasi.
Most of the passengers died on the spot, while a number of them, with serious injuries, were rushed to the Kintampo Government Hospital and the Techiman Holy Family Hospital for treatment.
The police say the KIA Grand Bird bus caught fire after the collision and some of the passengers were burnt beyond recognition.
According to the police, some of the passengers were trapped either inside or under the two buses and personnel of the Ghana National Fire Service had to cut portions of the buses to retrieve them.
Charred bodies, belongings of the passengers and pieces of metal chopped off from the buses as a result of the severity of the collision scattered around the accident scene, which attracted many people to witness the tragedy.
In the second accident, more than 30 people died at Ekumfi Dunkwa on the Winneba-Cape Coast highway in the Central Region.
The accident involved a Yutong bus which was travelling from Takoradi to Accra and a Metro Mass Transit bus heading towards Cape Coast.
