Thousands of people fled their homes in Maputo on Friday, fearing fresh explosions from the smoking wreckage of Mozambique’s largest armoury as emergency workers stockpiled bodies and missile shells.
Men, women and children packed up meagre belongings and tried to hitch a lift into town from the impoverished Magoanine neighbourhood that bore the brunt of the series of explosions on Thursday evening, which killed 96 people and injured about 400.
Fifteen of the dead had died in hospital, Health Minister Ivo Garrido said on Friday.
Mozambique declared three days of national mourning following the deaths, Vista News reported.
Garrido announced this after attending a council of ministers meeting on Friday afternoon
Women with children strapped to their backs and basic food supplies balanced on their heads thronged along the highway leading to the centre of town after being told by security forces to get out of harm’s way.
”We are worried about the possibility of more explosions,” said Maria Machabo, fleeing with her five young children. ”It is still so hot; yesterday it was 36 [degrees Celcius], now it’s 38 … even the soldiers seem to be running away.”
Sealed off
Security forces sealed off the area around the blast as smoke continued to billow into the air on Friday afternoon with the fire brigade fighting a losing battle to dampen the ground.
They were joined by medics and civilian volunteers to ferry the dead and injured to hospital and gather exploded and unexploded ordnance that landed in nearby homes.
A source involved in the emergency operation said the blast had occurred as the massive stockpile of weapons, missiles and ammunition had been badly stored at an army base close to the capital’s international airport.
”The explosion was due to bad storage,” he said on condition of anonymity. ”The ammunition and weapons were kept under a metal roof with no real ventilation. It is the heat that has caused it.”
Rockets and missiles rained down on houses after being set off by a series of massive blasts at about nightfall on Thursday.
As news began emerging of the scale of the tragedy, hospitals treating the wounded issued an emergency appeal for blood donors to come forward. Dozens of volunteers gathered at Maputo Central Hospital to donate blood as streams of makeshift ambulances brought in the dead and wounded.
Others also offered help, like car-dealership owner Daniero Jala who gave emergency services the use of several 4×4 vehicles to help in the evacuation of the injured and the gathering of shells.
Stockpiles of missiles could be seen under the shade of trees before being loaded into the back of vehicles.
Carnage
Jala said he had seen scenes of carnage in the homes that had borne the impact of the disaster. ”Until now they are still taking out the dead. There are bodies still in the houses. It was so terrible, there were bodies without heads … so many people injured.”
The impact of the explosion shattered windows up to 8km away, including in the Tinashe health clinic from where patients fled when windows shattered and the ceilings began to collapse.
”The earth started rising from under our feet. We couldn’t see one another because of all the dust,” said Machabo as she described the moment of impact. ”It was getting dark but we could see the flames. They were very high.”
Many of the injured were children playing outside at the time of the initial blast.
Eriqueta Chaver, a nurse at a nearby mental hospital that also suffered extensive damage, said her 12-year-old niece was still missing. ”She disappeared and I’ve asked for permission to look for her [from security forces who cordoned off the area].”
Another resident, Raphael Luis, said he had to leave most of his possessions behind, but this was of little importance. ”The only thing we should worry about is that we’re alive,” he said as he trundled with his girlfriend towards her parents’ house. ”The rest does not matter.”
This is the third time the Russian-built armoury has gone up in smoke since 1985. In September that year, 12 people were killed, and in January this year, three people were seriously injured after blasts at the same armoury. — Sapa-AFP, Sapa