Surviving victims of the June 3 fire and flood disaster have sued the Goil filling station, the National Petroleum Authority and former Mayor of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, Albert Oko Vanderpuye for various acts of negligence.
The plaintiffs numbering 69 are demanding damages of ¢40 million and over 1 million cedis to cater for their hospital and transportation bills.
The June 3 victims in a class action claim the negligence of the defendants, led to the disaster which has left them with disfigured and with several disabilities and missed opportunities to earn a decent living.
They are therefore asking an Accra High Court to award them the cost of damages in order to mitigate the hardships they have endured over the last two years.
150 people died in the twin disaster that occurred at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle in Accra on June 3, 2015.
Background
Over 300 people were directly affected by the tragedy whilst 150 lives were lost after which the government declared three days of national mourning.
Apart from the irreplaceable human lives lost, five houses, including the Goil filling station at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle, suffered various degrees of damage valued at GH¢1,658,847.00, excluding other properties that suffered minor damages which were not valued.
A five-member committee set up by the government and inaugurated on June 16, 2015, to investigate the possible causes of the disaster revealed that the fire was ignited by one Seth Kwesi Ofosu, who did not dispose of properly the butt of a cigarette he was smoking.
The remote cause of the June 3 twin disaster, however, was the fact that there was a leakage of the fuel tanks at the filling station due to the flood and the fuel had mixed up with the flood water.
The “flooding of Kwame Nkrumah was the remote cause of the fire. The displacement of fuel from the Goil filling station at Kwame Nkrumah Circle was the intermediate cause.
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