At least 15 people were killed and more than 400 injured in a massive series of explosions at a military barracks in Equatorial Guinea, state television reported.
The explosions were due to “negligent handling of dynamite”, according to a note read on TVGE by President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. He said the explosions occurred at 4 pm at the barracks in the neighborhood of Mondong Nkuantoma in Bata. He said the impact damaged almost every building in the country’s main city.
There were some discrepancies with the death toll, with TVGE reporting 20 deaths, a tweet from the health ministry saying that 17 were killed and the president’s statement mentioning 15.
State television showed a huge cloud of smoke rising above the site of the explosion, probably from at least five explosions, as the crowds fled, with people shouting, “We don’t know what happened, but everything is destroyed.”
Images in the local media showed people screaming and running through the streets surrounded by rubble and smoke. The roofs of the houses were uprooted and the wounded were transported to a hospital.
The health ministry tweeted that workers were treating the wounded at the site of the tragedy and in medical facilities, but feared that people were still buried under the rubble.
The son of the president’s jet set, Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, vice president responsible for defense and security, appeared on television images at the scene of the explosions inspecting the damage, accompanied by his Israeli bodyguards.
Teodorin, as he is known, is increasingly seen as the president’s designated successor in the oil-rich Central African nation.
Bata is the largest city, with about 800,000 of the country’s 1.4 million inhabitants living there – most of them in poverty. While on the mainland, the capital Malabo is on Bioko, one of the country’s islands on the west coast of Africa.
Equatorial Guinea has been ruled by Obiang Nguema, 78, for almost 42 years. Opposition figures and international organizations regularly accuse him of human rights abuses.
A doctor who called TVGE, who answered by his first name, Florentino, said that the explosions were a “moment of crisis” and that hospitals were overcrowded. He said a sports center set up for Covid-19 patients would be used to receive less severe cases.
Radio Macuto said on Twitter that people were being evacuated 4km outside the city because the smoke could be harmful.
After the explosion, the Spanish embassy in Equatorial Guinea recommended on Twitter that Spaniards “stay at their homes”.