The dangerous Clingers footbridge at Ayigbe Town trotro bus stop in Accra. This bridge accesses Agbobloshie and its peripheral communities from the Ring Road West. The structure is made of steel but the flooring used to be wood.
Since 2021, the wooden flooring has been removed so users of the bridge dangerously cling to the side rails in order to cross.
The maneuver includes gripping the thin side rails to move forward. It is a delicate act that makes no room for error because once one loses the grip, they crash straight into the river bed rocks below.
In the header photo, a woman can be seen performing the risky crossing. The river can be seen from the top of the bridge because there is no flooring. The bars that make up the frame for the now removed floor are so wide that its impossible to cross by stepping on them along. So one crosses by clinging to the side rail and then carefully stepping on the thin side bar which is about one third the width of a human foot. So for each step, its only a few toes or part of the heel that really grips the rail. Its fatal for any of these body parts to slip.
So far it has been a safe passage for patrons except in one case when a young man fatally lost the grip and plunged headlong to his death.
The cream building at the end of the bridge is the southern offices of the Old Fadama campus of the Central University.
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