Three Killed in Explosion at Tailings Site Near Tarkwa in Ghana’s Western Region
An explosion at a tailings site in Aboso, near Tarkwa in Ghana’s Western Region, killed three people, including the owner of the facility, and left three others injured on Tuesday afternoon, the Ghanaian Times reported, according to AllAfrica.
The blast tore through the site during the afternoon, the Ghanaian Times said. The injured were among those caught up in the explosion at the tailings facility, a site associated with the processing of material left over from gold extraction.
A mining heartland
Aboso sits within the Tarkwa mining belt, one of Ghana’s most productive gold-producing districts. The Western Region has formed the backbone of the country’s mining industry for more than a century, hosting both large-scale industrial operations run by international firms and a long-standing artisanal and small-scale mining sector.
Tailings — the finely ground rock and slurry left over after ore is processed — are typically stored in engineered dams or heaps near processing plants. Incidents at such facilities have periodically drawn attention to safety standards across the sector, particularly at smaller, informally managed sites that have proliferated in the Western Region and beyond.
Scrutiny of small-scale mining
Ghana’s mining industry contributes a significant share of national export earnings, and regulators have in recent years stepped up inspections of small-scale operations, long associated in local parlance as “galamsey.” Authorities have cited environmental degradation as well as recurring safety concerns as justification for tighter oversight and intermittent crackdowns on unlicensed activity.
Details of what triggered Tuesday’s blast had not been publicly confirmed at the time of reporting.
Sources
This report was written from coverage published by the following news organisations. Follow the links for the original reporting.
