Ghana's "Dome"...A Disaster Awaiting To Happen?

Ghana�s biggest entertainment hub � The Dome of the International Conference Centre is a disaster waiting to happen if care is not taken right from this moment. The �Dome� as it is popularly known is situated adjacent the Conference Centre on the left side when one is entering the premises. The structure was built temporarily for an international conference hosted by Ghana way back in 2008 and has not seen any facelift or maintenance since then. It was meant to have been taken-apart (demolished) after the conference but that decision was rescinded when some business folks in Ghana decided to acquire it for future use. The said conference was the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD XII) hosted in April 2008 for a little over three thousand (3,000) participants from across the globe and it lasted for only 5 days. The structure was later christened as �The Dome� and has since then been turned into a centre for hosting all sorts of entertainment programs. Majority of the major entertainment events organised during the recently ended festive season which drew thousands of patrons were held there and these include Sonny Badu�s gospel concert, Night of 1015 Laughs and Music, Ghana Rocks, Sarkodie�s Rapperholic concert amongst many others. Talking about the crowds that gather at the Dome for almost every event and the safety measures associated thereof, I would want to draw our attention to the unfortunate fire outbreak that occurred at a night club in Brazil just last week Sunday, which led to the death of almost 240 youth, with more than 100 injured, many of them severely. The latest I heard of the story is that the owner attempted suicide because he could not bear the mental agony of knowing that all these people had died supposedly under his care. The police are still investigating though but some major questions arose from the accident some of which is the quality of the nightclub building and whether emergency procedures were followed. The blaze appears to have been started by a pyrotechnic flare lit on stage by a member of the band; sound-proofing material caught fire, producing toxic gases which quickly overpowered many in the crowd. Police said that at least one exit was blocked. Television stations broadcast images of firefighters, helped by bystanders, breaking through a wall to get in. Some of the victims were found in the bathrooms, possibly because they mistook them for emergency exits, and were then unable to come back out through the panicked crowds. It was reported that the club�s Fire Prevention and Control Plan expired last year. Mind you, it costs about fifteen thousand dollars ($15,000) to rent the place for an event, thus per investigations undertaken by The Weekend Globe. This figure is minus the security you have to provide and the electricity needed to power the place throughout the event. The Dome, sits an estimated number of over four thousand (4,000) people, the largest structure to take such numbers in Ghana so far.