An unfinished building being used as a church collapsed in Ghana’s capital, Accra, on Sunday, killing three and injuring 20 others. Photo courtesy Minister of the Interior, Ghana/Facebook
Three people died and 20 more were sent to local hospitals after an unfinished building in Ghana being used as a church collapsed during a service.
The three-story building, located in Ghana’s capital, Accra — described by eyewitnesses as incomplete, poorly constructed and barely maintained — collapsed on Sunday after heavy rain, although the actual cause is now under investigation, the BBC reported.
Local residents said the building was part of a school and was being used for church services and other activities despite construction having never been completed.
“It’s a very sad day for all of us,” Ghana’s interior minister, Muntaka Mohammed-Mubarak, told reporters during a visit to the collapsed building.
“We have heard that, even this morning, people said that this building should not be used,” he said of the building.
Mohammed-Mubarak confirmed that three people, one man and two women, had died and that another 20 — men, women and children — were sent for treatment at hospitals as he said that police, emergency services personnel and the military were investigating the collapse.
He added that although it is unknown how many people were in the building at the time of the collapse, it is believed that there are no more people trapped or buried in the rubble.
The building was part of an abandoned school project near another school, the Experimental Junior High School, and had been used as a church for some time, UTV Ghana reported.
“Everybody in the community knows the building is very weak, yet they allowed services and activities inside,” an eyewitness of the collapse told the BBC.
