The death toll from blasts at a military armoury in Mozambique’s capital Maputo triggered by high temperatures had risen to 72, Health Minister Ivo Paulo Garido said on Friday. The blasts began on Thursday. President Armando Guebuza called off a visit to South Africa on Friday because of the disaster.
As night fell on Thursday night, the sound of sirens punctuated the blasts as a fleet of ambulances ferried casualties to the main hospital.
Guebuza appeared on national television to appeal for calm as firefighters and military officials tried to control the blaze.
”We lament what is happening,” Guebuza said.
The area was sealed off by police as scenes of panic unfolded in the capital. Downtown streets were filled with people fleeing the area, with hundreds preparing to sleep rough because they were unable to return to their homes and others desperately searching for loved ones.
Joao Temba, a nine-year-old boy, said he fled his home in panic.
His parents were at work at the time in Maputo and he had not been able to find them.
”I don’t know where they are. I don’t know what is happening,” he said.
One man, whose name was not given, told Mozambique television that he managed to escape from his house with just with basic belongings.
”I don’t know if my house has burned down,” he said.
Five hours after the blaze started, there were still occasional explosions from the weapons depot in the Magoanine district, a poor neighbourhood about 5km from the airport.
At the height of the inferno, some city centre windows were shattered by the intense heat. Buildings also shook with the impact of the explosions.
The national armoury is used to store weapons and ammunition, including some from Mozambique’s long civil war. It was the scene of an explosion in January, when three people were injured.
Guebuza said the military was working to try and find out the cause of the blasts.
Mozambique, an impoverished Southern African nation still recovering from a long civil war, has been battered by natural disasters this year. Aid agencies have credited Mozambique’s good emergency response system with limiting the casualties. Heavy rains have inundated much of the country since January, causing flooding and prompting tens of thousands of people to be evacuated from their homes. A cyclone hit coastal resorts last month, killing 12 people and battering the nation’s fledgling tourist industry. And earlier this week, more homes on the coast were evacuated and sea defences were breached by exceptionally high tides.
The southern part of Mozambique, which includes Maputo, is in the grip of a fierce drought and blistering heat wave. Temperatures in the capital on Thursday reached 35° Celsius.
Authorities blamed the fire at the weapons depot in January on the heat. ‒ Sapa-AP