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Boat disaster claims 13 lives at Yeji

By Daily Graphic
General News Boat disaster claims  13 lives at Yeji
MAY 31, 2016 LISTEN

A boat disaster that occurred on the Volta Lake at Yeji in the Pru District in the Brong Ahafo Region on Sunday afternoon has so far claimed 13 lives.

Efforts are still being made to retrieve more bodies.

The death toll is expected to rise, as families expect the search party to retrieve the bodies of their loved ones from the lake.

Six of the bodies, all children, were retrieved last Sunday, while seven others, including an expectant mother, were retrieved yesterday.

One survivor said his four relatives who were on the boat were still unaccounted for.

The accident comes barely two weeks after a similar disaster on the lake that claimed four lives.

A source at Yeji told the Daily Graphic that Sunday's accident happened about 1:30 p.m. when the boat was carrying passengers from Nantwie Akuraa to Yeji.

The boat, which was carrying between 60 and 70 passengers, is said to have hit a tree stump, split into two before capsizing.

Reports said some of the passengers were able to swim to safety, while those who could not swim drowned.

Besides the overloaded passengers, the boat is also said to be carrying a cow.

Identified victims
The Pru District Police Commander, Deputy Superintendent of Police Mr Abraham Bansah, gave the names of five of the deceased, all children, as Kwame Adjei Biney, 11 months; his elder sibling Elina Biney, three; Edinam Tadzi, two; Oscar Benyan, two, and Abigail Donkor, three.

One of the survivors, Alex Biney, who narrated his ordeal to the Daily Graphic, said when the boat capsized, he was torn between saving either his wife or his mother.

He said even though he was able to save both of them, he painfully lost two of his children, Kwame and Elina Biney.

Mr Biney explained that Naval officers and boat owners were involved in the search to retrieve more bodies.

 Sundays and Mondays are market days at Yeji and people travel from villages around the lake and beyond to either sell their foodstuffs or buy their needs from the market.

Information available to the Daily Graphic indicated that the boat, which had started its journey from the Volta Region, made a number of stopovers along the lake to either drop or take on more passengers.

DCE
In an interview on a Sunyani-based FM station, the Pru District Chief Executive, Mr Emmanuel Kwame Opoku, said he was not sure about the number of people who had been on board the boat.

He said through the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), boat owners and the people were being educated on the need to wear life jackets when they travelled on the lake.

He explained that last year NADMO supplied some boat owners with 800 life jackets.

However, he said, boat passengers refused to wear the jackets, with the explanation that they were not comfortable wearing them.

Mr Opoku added that although the assembly had banned boat owners from operating after 6 p.m., some recalcitrant ones operated after 6 p.m. on the blind side of the law enforcement agencies.

He admitted that the boats were sometimes overloaded, a practice which could be partly blamed for the rampant accidents on the lake.

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