Engineers in the country should take a cue from the falling boulders of sedimentary rocks off the Aburi Mountains along the Aburi-Accra road and anticipate landslides in the future, former Executive Director of the Centre for Geographical Information Service at the University of Ghana, Professor Amamoo Okyere has cautioned.
Authorities have failed to deal with the danger of falling boulders on a portion of the highway along the sharp curve heading towards Accra, despite a promise by the Ministry of Roads and Highways that preliminary works to remove the threatening boulders would be completed in the early part of this year.
Six months after the contract was awarded to a company to deal with the threat, nothing has been done, a situation that has left the threat of falling boulders persisting.
Class FM’s Ridwan Karim Dini Osman, who visited the scene on Monday 6 June 2016, reported that the sedimentary boulders which were flaking off the mountain risked tumbling onto the road any time without warning.
Commenting on the issue, Prof Okyere told Prince Minkah on the Executive Breakfast Show on Monday June 6 that the precarious nature of the Aburi mountain is similar to that of the Kwahu mountains and Mampong scarp, warning that: “Some serious thinking might have to be done to reduce any possible hazards.
“[In] this part of Africa, we are safe and the rocks are very stable, but nothing is permanent in this universe. There will come a time that the shaking [of the tectonic plates] will be as continuous as what the people in The Philippines and Malaysia and [others in Asia] are experiencing in the Pacific Ocean. When it happens, it is going to be frequent, so, we have to expect [it] and the engineers have to anticipate some of these things [which will cause landslides].”
Asked by the host if Ghana will experience this phenomenon anytime soon, Prof Amamoo Okyere said: “We are nowhere close and we cannot predict, but we can look at historical facts; now that we are experiencing sedimentary rock falls, it means the overburdening is weakening.
“We have already done some deforestation at the top, so, when it rains, it seeps quickly and will reach certain layers and the crevices will be slippery. So, as far as that localised area is concerned, this is giving us a warning and we have to find solutions as quickly as possible to the [falling boulder].”
He explained that any engineering work on the mountain could trigger the boulders to slide and tumble.
According to him, the Aburi rocks undergo changes with the weather. “After some time, when there is any slippage in the layers under the rock, the burden on it will slip as landslide and will block the road,” the academic further explained.
He suggested that: “The engineers who did the road should have done some sort of slanting, so that when you are going up, the slope is inclining off the road. This did not happen and, of course, it costs much to do that.”
By his standards, the Aburi road is “one of the best dual roads in the country but we may have to spend a little more to make it safe”.
Prof Amamoo Okyere said he believed the Ministry of Roads and Highways has competent engineers who can solve the problem.
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