Children lose parents as thousands flee after Equatorial Guinea blast (updated)

Bata India

10/03/2021 15:50

* Death toll from explosions rises to 105
    * Five-year old girl pulled from rubble on Wednesday -media
    * Three days of national mourning decreed
    * Drone footage shows scale of damage

 (Adds government comment)
    By Aaron Ross
    March 10 (Reuters) - Callers seeking the parents of lost
children have been regularly dialling in to radio and television
programmes since a series of explosions levelled much of
Equatorial Guinea's largest city and sent thousands fleeing for
the countryside.
    Three days on, residents of Bata are still coming to grips
with the full scale of a tragedy that has killed at least 105
people and injured more than 600 others.
    Drone footage aired on state television showed block after
block of public housing in the coastal city either completely
destroyed or close to it, the remnants of their roofs and walls
strewn across the neighbourhood's dirt roads.
    "There are many children without parents," said a teacher in
Bata, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals from the
authorities in the tightly-controlled central African country.
"In the long (term) what do we do with those children?"
    The reclusive government blamed the explosions on fires set
by farmers living near the military base and the negligent
handling of dynamite stocks by the military unit guarding them.
    It has decreed three days of national mourning from
Wednesday, declared Bata a catastrophe zone, unblocked 10
billion ($18.19 million) CFA francs for the response and
appealed for international aid.
    Firefighters continued to comb the rubble on Wednesday for
bodies as onlookers wept, state television showed. The
authorities appealed for donations of blood and basic goods.
    A five-year old girl was pulled on Wednesday from the rubble
of a house in the military camp where the blast occurred,
Equato-Guinean media AhoraEG said.
    Officials have been forced to turn to refrigerated
containers to store bodies, said the teacher and Alfredo Okenve,
a human rights activist who lives in exile in Europe.
    Okenve said his information indicated the number of deaths
was between 150 and 200, significantly higher than the
government's official toll of 105. 
    Virgilio Seriche, an official at the information ministry,
denied that bodies were being stored in containers and said
authorities were providing up-to-date information about 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.
        
    TRAUMATISED
    Bata residents are traumatised from the explosions, which
lasted for hours on Sunday, and fearful of additional blasts.
    The first explosion "was so big that all of us and the
people around us were shouting: 'This is a bomb, this is a
bomb!'" said the teacher. 
    "People were crying, shouting, running, trying to stay
somewhere, but it was panic. We started to see police cars and
firemen and people bleeding. It was awful." 
    The health ministry said in a tweet that it was deploying
psychiatrists and psychologists.   
    The United Nations said on Wednesday that the World Health
Organization and children's agency UNICEF had mobilised teams to
control infection and provide logistical support. Spain has sent
a first batch of emergency aid. 
    The former Spanish colony has been run by President Teodoro
Obiang Nguema, Africa's longest-serving leader, since 1979.
    It is the Central African country's worst tragedy in recent
memory, and while the government, charitable organisations and
private citizens have kept everyone fed and sheltered for now,
most of Equatorial Guinea's 1.4 million people 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-fourths of state revenue.    
    State media has provided wall-to-wall coverage of the
disaster, including the appeals over the lost children, a rarity
in a country that human rights activists consider one of
Africa's most repressive and where bad news is often suppressed.
    Okenve said the scale of the tragedy had left the government
with no choice. 
    "If there is information coming out, it is because it is
impossible to control," he said.
($1 = 549.9000 Central African CFA franc BEAC)

 (Reporting by Aaron Ross in DAKAR; editing by Philippa
Fletcher)
 ((Aaron.Ross@thomsonreuters.com; +221 77 569 1702;))