The Ghana Geological Survey Authority (GGSA) has warned that people around the Weija Ridge and Reservoir are living on a time bomb that is ticking away every day as the human activities in the mountains pose a great risk to their lives and property.
The authority explained that the sand winning and rock blasting activities on the ridge had gradually weakened the hills along the Accra-Cape Coast road, particularly around Weija in the Ga South municipality. A Principal Seismologist of the GGSA, Nicholas Opoku, said the activities posed a great threat to the inhabitants of the area.
He gave the warning when a team of officials from various ministries and commissions in charge of the environment paid a visit to the Weija Ridge and Water Reservoir last Friday. He said the Weija Ridge was part of the Akuapem Fault Zone, a line along which seismic waves occur, which accounted for the occurrence of earthquakes in the area.
He added that the hills in that area were geologically weak because they had a lot of fractures.
“What is making the problem much more difficult is the mining and sand-winning activities going on here,” Mr. Opoku said. He added that those activities exposed the soft rocks, which had undergone serious erosion, and should the activities continue, it would completely erode the middle rocks and cause the hills, together with the buildings on them, to collapse.
“The risk is higher here, since there are a lot of buildings on the mountains,” Mr Opoku added.
He warned people living in other highlands in the country not to engage in indiscriminate sand winning as the risks would “be difficult to manage”