EARTH QUAKE HOAX-nation forced to keep vigil (Front page)

Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2010

RUMOURS of an earthquake hitting Ghana late Sunday night reverberated across the country, prompting millions of people to pour onto the streets and other open spaces for safety.
While no one seems to know the source of the rumour, friends, families and neighbours made phone calls, sent text messages and knocked on doors to send warnings to people to wake up and leave their rooms.
A text message purported to have powered the rumour mill read, "Today's night 12:30 to 3:30 am, COSMIC RAYS entering Earth from Mars. Switch off your mobiles today's night. NASA BBC news, plz pass to all your friends."
The rumour predicted that an earthquake was about to hit the country and advised people to stay out of their rooms to avoid being killed by collapsing buildings.
The streets of Accra were jammed with residents seeking protection from the anticipated earthquake, while frantic phone calls were made to and received from relatives, friends and loved one all over the country warning people to stay away from their rooms.
Albert K. Salia reports that the rumours also stretched the police to their limits as the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mr Paul Tawiah Quaye, ordered his men out to monitor the situation to prevent criminals from taking advantage of the confusion to strike.
“You do not have to leave things to chance,” he told the Daily Graphic.
From Sowutuom, Lucy Adoma Yeboah reports that the love for fellow human beings manifested when some volunteers took it upon themselves to move from house to house to alert occupants to come out of their rooms to avert danger.
In the early hours of yesterday, almost all residents around Adu Gyamfi School at Sowutuom trooped from their homes to gather at any available space for protection.
That was after some young men who allegedly had the information from relations on their mobile phones decided to alert others in the community.
Among them were men, women, children and the elderly, some of whom had to be helped to come out of their rooms to stay out till day broke when some radio station denied the rumour.
Seth J. Bokpe reports that the Head of the Seismic Monitoring Unit of the Geological Survey Department, Mr Sylvanus Ahulu, discredited the rumour, describing it as a “hoax”.
Mr Ahulu said "earthquakes were unpredictable natural occurrences which cannot be prevented but its impact can be reduced to some extent”.
"If someone had said he had felt it, it was an indication that something might have happened, which then provided the basis for people to leave their buildings so that the after shock or subsequent ones would not affect them," he said.
At Accra New Town, scores of residents went out of their homes around 3 a.m. in response to the scare.
Some residents thronged the streets carrying their mattresses, while others remained in open compounds.
A resident, Gloria Amoani, told the Daily Graphic that she received a phone call from her aunt in Koforidua telling her “to inform my mother that there has been an announcement on radio that an earthquake would hit the country".
An angry Musah Ibrahim said whoever started the rumour "must be prosecuted for deceiving the nation".
Emmanuel Adu-Gyamerah reports from New Gbawe, near Accra, that residents spent a greater part of Sunday night in the open, particularly on the streets, for fear of their lives, as a result of reports of an expected earthquake.
When this reporter woke up about 4 a.m., some residents had gathered in groups discussing the issue.
It was pathetic to see a nursing mother with her one-month-old baby sitting by the roadside at the Blue Cross Junction in the cold night.
While this reporter was chatting with the nursing mother, a taxi emerged and suddenly stopped. A passenger dashed out of it and headed towards a storey building nearby.
The passenger began banging the door to the house, apparently to wake up its residents.
The passenger later told the Daily Graphic that he had hired the taxi from Dansoman just to come and wake up his relatives staying in the storey building because all the calls he had made earlier had not gone through.
It was only after an Accra FM station started allaying the fears of residents that the information was not true that they had the courage to go back to their rooms to continue with their sleep.
Henrietta Brocke reports that a Deputy Minister of Information, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, debunked the rumour, saying, "It is not true; it’s total fabrication."
He said the rumour was just to create panic in the nation, adding that God's blessings were on Ghana and that the country's geographical location was safe, compared to that of other countries.
Mr Ablakwa assured Ghanaians that the government was putting in measures to purchase a new machine for the early detection of any uncertainty that might occur.
"Let us go about our normal duties; nothing will happen in Ghana," he added.
Emmanuel Bonney reports from Kasoa that residents in and around the town poured out onto open spaces after hearing the rumour.
The residents, comprising the elderly and children, said they had received calls from friends and relatives about the impending danger and so they had to take precautionary measures by coming out into the open.
The incident took place between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. While some were seen bare-chested, especially the men, the women were mostly seen in cloth.
Jacob, a resident of the Kasoa High Tension area, said he had to rush outside with his wife and three children.
Rose Hayford Darko reports from Tema that while some residents attributed the rumour to a radio station, others could not give the sources of their information.
Some people became relaxed when some radio stations announced that what was going round was only a rumour and had no substance.
Some residents appealed to the government to help equip the Geological Survey and the Meteorological departments to help them in the performance of their duties.
Majority of residents of the Western Region passed the night on the streets, in parks and open spaces as a result of the rumour, reports Moses Dotsey Aklorbortu from Takoradi.
From Shama through the Twin-City of Sekondi/Takoradi, Axim, Nkroful and other communities along the coast, residents could not sleep as they converged on open places and parks to discuss the Haitian situation, while others prayed to God from 2 a.m. until an announcement from the Regional Co-ordination Council that the rumour was untrue.
In the metropolis, residents were moving from one end to the other in the darkness as the street lights were off, thereby compounding the fears of the people.
A drive through the metropolis about 2:30 a.m. revealed women with their babies firmly tied to their backs standing on the streets in readiness for the unexpected.
The situation became so serious that the Western Regional Police Commander, Alhaji Hamidu Mahama, had to deploy men from the Rapid Deployment Force of the Ghana Police Service to patrol the streets to ensure that thieves did not capitalise on the fear of the people to rob them of their belongings.
Thousands of people in Kumasi woke up from their sleep in the early hours of Monday and poured onto football fields and other safe areas as the rumour went round the city, Kwame Asare Boadu reports.
Reports from other parts of the Ashanti Region speak of similar situations as panicked residents, some half-naked, fled from their homes for safety.
At Asuoyeboa, Tanoso, Bantama, Krofrom, Asafo and other suburbs, frightened residents took over school parks in the early morning darkness.
The Christians among them resorted to prayers, calling on God to save them from the imminent catastrophe.
Coming in the wake of the recent devastating earthquake in Haiti, some residents wailed, not knowing what was to befall them in the next minute.
Reports reaching the Daily Graphic from Breman Kokoso, a town in the Asikuma-Odoben-Brakwa District of the Central Region, spoke of people, including children and the elderly, massing up on the main Kokoso-Oda road when they heard of the rumour.
Around 2 a.m. when the people of the town received phone calls from elsewhere about the imminent earthquake, the rsponse was quite spontaneous with almost every resident coming out in their numbers into open spaces.