Images of drones broadcast on state television showed blocks and blocks of public housing in the coastal city completely destroyed or close to it, the remnants of its roofs and walls strewn across the neighborhood’s dirt roads.
“There are many children without parents,” said a teacher in Bata, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals from authorities in the heavily controlled central African country. “In the long term, what will we do with these children?”
The recluse government attributed the blasts to fires caused by farmers who lived near the military base and to the negligent handling of dynamite stocks by the military unit that protected them.
He decreed three days of national mourning from Wednesday, declared Bata a catastrophe zone, unlocked 10 billion ($ 18.19 million) CFA francs for the response and called for international aid.
Firefighters continued to search the rubble on Wednesday for bodies while onlookers cried, state television showed. The authorities appealed for donations of blood and commodities.
A five-year-old girl was evacuated on Wednesday from the rubble of a house in the military camp where the explosion occurred, Guinean media AhoraEG said.
Authorities were forced to use refrigerated containers to store the bodies, said the professor and Alfredo Okenve, a human rights activist who lives in exile in Europe.
Okenve said his information indicated that the death toll was between 150 and 200, significantly higher than the government’s official number of 105.
Virgilio Seriche, an information ministry official, denied that the bodies were being stored in containers and said the authorities were providing updated information on the number of confirmed deaths.
“The reliable data is what the government is publishing about this incident, not what comes from other sources,” he told Reuters.
Traumatized residents
Residents of Bata are traumatized by the explosions, which lasted for hours on Sunday, and fearful of further explosions.
The first explosion “was so big that all of us and the people around us shouted, ‘This is a bomb, this is a bomb!’” Said the teacher.
“People were crying, screaming, running, trying to stay somewhere, but it was panic. We started seeing police cars, firemen and people bleeding. It was horrible.”
The health ministry said in a tweet that it was hiring psychiatrists and psychologists.
The United Nations said on Wednesday that the World Health Organization and the UNICEF children’s agency had mobilized teams to control the infection and provide logistical support. Spain sent a first batch of emergency aid.
It is the worst tragedy in the Central African country in recent memory, and while the government, charities and private citizens have kept everyone fed and protected for the time being, most of the 1.4 million Guineans live in poverty.
The country is also suffering a double economic shock from the coronavirus pandemic and a drop in the price of crude oil, which provides about three quarters of the state’s revenue.
State media provided full coverage of the disaster, including appeals to lost children, a rarity in a country that human rights activists consider one of the most repressive in Africa and where bad news is often suppressed.
Okenve said the scale of the tragedy left the government with no choice.
“If there is information coming out, it is because it is impossible to control,” he said.