Rescue team could not remove any of the trapped miners

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Rescue team searching for illegal miners (galamsey operators) who were trapped in a collapsed pit at the Obuasi suburb of the Gbani community in the Talensi district on Thursday, November 20, 2014, have found three lifeless bodies.

It was being speculated in the community that there were seven more miners trapped underground and rescuers were still searching for those miners.

At the time of filing this report, members of the rescue team, with the assistance of Shaanxi Mining Ghana Ltd., were still looking for more bodies believed to have been buried in the galamsey pits.

On Wednesday, November 19, an illegally dug mining pit had its walls broken while some illegal miners were down the pit searching for Gold.

Information from some local people indicates that early this year two people narrowly escaped death in the same pit. One other died in that same incident and yet miners there had thrown caution to the wind.

There were signs of danger where the pit is situated, according to the inhabitants, and yet the illegal miners, blind-folded by their desire to get rich at all cost, went down to the pit and were trapped underground.

Rescue team could not remove any of the trapped miners on the first day of the search until Thursday, November 20, when three dead bodies were found.

The search is being done with the use of excavators, pay-loaders and other heavy duty search machines released by Shaanxi Mining Ghana Limited, a technical mining service provider operating in the Gbani community in in the Upper East Region.

The Deputy Mining Officer at the Minerals Commission in the region, Mr. Kayi, said some efforts had been made to stop illegal miners from operating in the Gbani community, particulary that collapsed pit, but people had refused to heed to the advice.

The Deputy Upper East Regional Minister, Daniel Syme, had visited the area and asked the residents to help stop galamsey activities there

From Ebo Bruce-Quansah, Gbani

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