A pictorial view of the scene of the explosion. Photo Credit: Ghana 24

About 17 individuals were killed and scores harmed when a truck conveying explosives to a gold mine in western Ghana slammed into a motorcycle, setting off a blast that leveled a country local area, the government said on Friday.

As heros looked over the site for survivors, recordings posted on neighborhood media showed many structures diminished to heaps of wood, rubble and curved metal, and dead bodies folded on the ground encompassed by flotsam and jetsam.

A photograph shared by a neighborhood legislator showed a yawning pit at the focal point of the impact, spectators looking down from its edge.

Seji Saji Amedonu, Deputy director general of the National Disaster Management Organization said around 500 structures were obliterated and that rescue efforts were still under way.

The blast happened on Thursday in Apiate, a settlement between the towns of Bogoso and Bawdie, when a bike fell under a truck claimed by an organization called Maxam that was shipping explosives to the Chirano gold mine, run by Toronto-based Kinross Gold Corporation (K.TO), police said.

Kinross affirmed the incident and said it was checking the circumstance. Maxam couldn’t be reached for a remark.

The Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources is examining the reason for the impact and regardless of whether the organizations included followed guidelines covering transportation of explosives, it said in an assertion.

Survivors in basic condition are being conveyed to Hospitals in the capital Accra, the government said.