Last updated on September 11th, 2021 at 08:00 am
Reports from Equatorial Guinea say a series of explosions at a military base have killed more than 90 people and injured more than 600 on Sunday, officials say. Reports say deaths and injuries have increased in the past few hours while more than 300 people still in hospitals.
The blasts hit a military base in the country’s largest city, Bata. Officials allege poor dynamite accumulated along with the burning of wood near the farmers. The death toll, however, was updated after volunteers searched for the wreckage on Monday, more than three times the initial estimate of 31.
Meanwhile, President TeodoroObiangNguema said the blast took place at 4pm and killed scores of people. Local time was due to “dynamite maintenance management” military barracks in MondongNkuantoma neighborhood in Bata.
Residents told CNN that the blast was powerful and resembled an atomic bomb. Another said she was in her car when the first blast occurred around 2 p.m. local time on Sunday. The explosion was huge. It was a huge noise and everyone got out of their cars we were all shocked, we saw the normal appearance of the atomic bomb in front of us, it was a state of confusion and despair, people were screaming and crying, she said.
Trucks full of survivors arrived at the scene, and most of the victims were children, and were taken to the front of the local hospital where some of the victims were recorded lying on the ground.
In the area where the blast took place, metal roofs were torn from half-destroyed houses and placed crooked in the middle of the rubble. Only one or two walls are left in most homes. People ran in every direction, many of them screaming.
“We hear the explosion and see smoke, but we do not know what is going on,” resident TeodoroNguema told AFP by telephone.
