Thirty-five Victims of Friday’s accident buried in mass grave
Thirty-five victims of last Friday's fatal accident at Amoma Nkwanta in the Kintampo South District in the Bono East Region who were burnt beyond recognition have been buried in a mass grave in Jema, near Kintampo.
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
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 occurred in the early hours of last Friday as a result of a head-on collision between two passenger buses, claimed 57 lives.
Fifty-three passengers who survived the accident sustained varying degrees of injury.
Condolences
After the mass burial, Mr Avoka expressed the condolence of the government and the assembly to the bereaved families and assured them of government support.
He advised the various transport unions to make it mandatory for long-distance vehicles to have two
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.