A series of powerful explosions at a military barracks in Equatorial Guinea killed at least 20 people and wounded more than 600 others at a military base in Equatorial Guinea’s largest city of Bata, according to officials.A series of explosions at a military barracks in Equatorial Guinea killed at least 20 people and wounded more than 600 others.
In a statement on national television, President Teodoro Obiang said the blasts on Sunday were caused by negligence related to the use of dynamite at the military base. No other details were immediately available.Obiang, who has ruled Equatorial Guinea since 1942, said at least 15 people were killed and 500 wounded in the explosions.
His statement came some two hours after the health ministry said on Twitter that 17 people had so far been confirmed dead, while the number of wounded stood at 420.
There were fears the death toll could rise.Local television showed groups of people pulling bodies from piles of rubble, some of which were carried away wrapped in bedsheets. There were also media appeals for people to donate blood, saying hospitals are overwhelmed.
Pick-up trucks filled with survivors, many of whom were children, drove up to the front of a local hospital where some victims were filmed lying on the floor.
In the blast area, iron roofs were ripped off half-destroyed houses and lay twisted amid the rubble. Only a wall or two remained of most houses. People ran in all directions, many of them screaming.
“We hear the explosion and we see the smoke, but we don’t know what’s going on,” a local resident named Teodoro Nguema told the AFP news agency by telephone.
‘Catastrophe’
Equatorial Guinea is a small country of some 1.4 million, with the majority of the population living in poverty despite rich oil reserves.
Obiang’s son, Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, vice president with responsibility for defence and security, appeared in the television footage at the scene inspecting the damage, accompanied by his Israeli bodyguards, according to AFP.
Teodorin, as he is known, is increasingly seen as the designated successor of the 78-year-old president.
A raíz de las explosiones acaecidas hoy en la ciudad de Bata, se recomienda a los nacionales españoles que permanezcan en sus domicilios.
Translation: Following the explosions that occurred today in the city of Bata, Spanish nationals are recommended to remain at home, the embassy said.
After the blast, the Spanish embassy in the capital, Malabo, requested its nationals to remain at home. “Following developments in Equatorial Guinea with concern after the explosions in the city of Bata,” said Spanish Foreign Minister Arancha Gonzalez Laya on Twitter.
Separately, the French ambassador in Equatorial Guinea, Brochenin Olivier, expressed his “condolences for the catastrophe that has just occurred in Bata”.
Earlier, the Health Ministry had tweeted that 17 were killed. The ministry made a call for blood donors and volunteer health workers to go to the Regional Hospital de Bata, one of three hospitals treating the wounded.
The ministry said its health workers were treating the injured at the site of the tragedy and in medical facilities, but feared people were still missing under the rubble.
The blasts were a shock for the oil rich Central African nation. Foreign Minister Simeón Oyono Esono Angue met with foreign ambassadors and asked for aid.
“It is important for us to ask our brother countries for their assistance in this lamentable situation since we have a health emergency (due to COVID-19) and the tragedy in Bata,” he said.
A doctor calling into TVGE, who went by his first name, Florentino, said the situation was a “moment of crisis” and that the hospitals were overcrowded. He said a sports center set up for Covid-19 patients would be used to receive minor cases.
Radio station, Radio Macuto, said on Twitter that people were being evacuated within four kilometers of the city because the fumes might be harmful.
Following the blast, the Spanish Embassy in Equatorial Guinea recommended on Twitter that “Spanish nationals stay in their homes."
Equatorial Guinea, an African country of 1.3 million people located south of Cameroon, was a colony of Spain until it gained its independence in 1968. Bata has roughly 175,000 inhabitants.
