Truck carrying explosives for mining collides with motorcycle, setting off massive, deadly explosion in Ghana

Johannesburg, South Africa — At least 13 people were killed and 45 were hospitalized on Friday after a devastating explosion ripped through a town in western Ghana the previous day. It was a tragic road accident, with devastating consequences.

A truck carrying explosives intended for mining collided with a motorcycle, setting off a blast that left a massive crater on the side of the road and reduced dozens of buildings to dust-covered heaps of wood and metal.  

Hundreds of homes were affected, many of them flattened. Rescue workers were still wading through rubble on Friday in the hope of finding buried survivors, but more often than not, they were retrieving lifeless bodies. 

The critically injured were being moved to hospitals about 180 miles away, in the capital of Accra. Police asked surrounding villages to open their schools and churches to accommodate any other victims, as well as those left homeless.

A disaster management official described it as “Black Thursday,” saying the area looked like a ghost town.

A team of police and army explosives experts was deployed to the area, to “avoid a second explosion,” the government said.