Death Toll from Equatorial Guinea Explosions Hits 98

At least 615 people were injured in the blasts on Sunday, which started with a fire at the Nkoantoma Military Base in the coastal city of Bata, according to the defense ministry.

Citing Vice President Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, the health ministry put the death toll at 98, more than triple of an earlier estimate of 31 killed.

Of the wounded, 299 remained hospitalized, the ministry wrote on Twitter.

President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, the vice president’s father, has attributed the accident to negligence related to the handling of dynamite and said the explosions damaged almost all homes and buildings in Bata, a city of just over 250,000 people.

The ministry also posted on Twitter that it had prepared a mental health brigade made up of psychiatrists, psychologists and nurses to attend to the victims of the blast.

The blasts occurred Sunday around 4 p.m. local time [1500 GMT], according to a statement by the president late Sunday.

Images published by local media showed bodies wrapped in sheets and lined up on the side of a road, with children being pulled out from under piles of broken concrete and twisted metal.

Television station TVGE showed the vice president visiting a hospital where victims were being treated on Monday.

The blasts come as Equatorial Guinea, an oil producer, is suffering a double economic shock because of the coronavirus pandemic and a drop in the price of crude oil, which provides around three-fourths of state revenue.