On November 12, 2009, a collapse occurred in an illegal, privately owned

gold mine Gold mining is the extraction of gold by mining. Historically, mining gold from alluvial deposits used manual separation processes, such as gold panning. The expansion of gold mining to ores that are not on the surface has led to more comple ...

Dompoase Dompoase, a suburb of Kumasi, and located in the Adansi North District in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. The place is known for Dompoase Senior High School. It is a town of 30,000 people in Ghana. Kumasi is the capital of the region, considered th ...

Ashanti Region The Ashanti Region is located in the southern part of Ghana and is the third largest of Regions of Ghana, 16 administrative regions, occupying a total land surface of and making up 10.2 percent of the total land area of Ghana. It is the List of ...

Ghana Ghana, officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It is situated along the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, and shares borders with Côte d’Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, and Togo to t ...

. Up to 30 miners were prospecting the mine when it collapsed because of a landslide. At least 18 workers were killed in the collapse, including 14 women and the owner of the mine. Officials have described the disaster as the worst mine collapse in Ghanaian history. Police in the Ghanaian capital of

Accra Accra (; or ''Gaga''; ; Ewe: Gɛ; ) is the capital and largest city of Ghana, located on the southern coast at the Gulf of Guinea, which is part of the Atlantic Ocean. As of 2021 census, the Accra Metropolitan District, , had a population of ...

have launched an investigation, and are looking into the possibility of criminal

negligence Negligence ( Lat. ''negligentia'') is a failure to exercise appropriate care expected to be exercised in similar circumstances. Within the scope of tort law, negligence pertains to harm caused by the violation of a duty of care through a neg ...

. The police commander in the Western Region of Ghana, Kojo Antwi Tabi, called the disaster "the biggest mining

tragedy A tragedy is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a tragic hero, main character or cast of characters. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy is to invoke an accompanying catharsi ...

that has ever hit Ghana". He also stated that he believed the government should take more measures to control the activities conducted in the mines. Safety measures in the mine were described as "poor or nonexistent". The mine owner had contracted 6 men and 24 women to work the mine. The men performed the

mining Mining is the Resource extraction, extraction of valuable geological materials and minerals from the surface of the Earth. Mining is required to obtain most materials that cannot be grown through agriculture, agricultural processes, or feasib ...

and digging, while the women carried out the soil for sorting. A 27-year-old survivor in a

hospital A hospital is a healthcare institution providing patient treatment with specialized Medical Science, health science and auxiliary healthcare staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically ...

claimed that she was the last person out of the mine and stated that everyone would have escaped were it not for a large tree that fell during the landslide. Police are searching for additional victims trapped in the mine. Because of the possibility of another collapse, rescue efforts remain extremely dangerous. It has been difficult to identify the bodies of the dead as well, as most of the miners were not from Ghana.

References

{{coord missing, Ghana Mining disasters in Ghana 2009 in Ghana 2009 mining disasters Illegal mining 2009 disasters in Ghana History of women in Ghana

See also

References