Images of drones broadcast on state television showed block after block of public housing in the coastal city, completely destroyed or nearby, the remains of its roofs and walls scattered along the dirt roads of the neighborhood.
“There are many children without parents,” a teacher told Bata, who asked that he not be named for fear of reprisals from the closely controlled Central African country authorities. “In the long run, what do we do with these kids?”
The sole government blamed the explosions on the fires caused by farmers living near the military base and the negligent treatment of dynamite stocks by the military unit guarding them.
Since Wednesday it has decreed three days of national mourning, Bata has declared a disaster zone, has unlocked 10 billion CFA francs for the response and has appealed for international aid.
Firefighters continued to comb the debris Wednesday through bodies as spectators wept, state television showed. Authorities demanded blood and commodity donations.
A five-year-old girl was removed Wednesday from the rubble of a house in the military camp where the blast took place, said AhoraEG, an Equatorial Guinean media.
Officials have been forced to resort to refrigerated containers to store bodies, said the professor and Alfredo Okenve, a human rights activist living 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 figure of 105.
Virgilio Seriche, an information ministry official, denied that bodies were stored in containers and said authorities provided up-to-date information on the number of confirmed deaths.
“Reliable data is what the government publishes about this incident, not what comes from other sources,” he told Reuters.
Traumatized residents
Bata residents are traumatized by the blasts, which lasted for hours on Sunday, and are afraid of additional explosions.
The first explosion “was so great that all of us and the people around us shouted,” This is a bomb, this is a bomb! “” Said the professor.
“People were crying, screaming, running, trying to stay somewhere, but it was panic. We started seeing police cars, firefighters and bloody people. It was terrible.”
The health ministry said in a tweet that it was deploying psychiatrists and psychologists.
The United Nations said Wednesday that the World Health Organization and the UNICEF children’s agency had mobilized teams to control the infection and provide logistical support. Spain has sent a first batch of emergency aid.
It is the worst tragedy in the Central African country to be remembered recently, and while the government, charities and private citizens have kept everyone fed and protected for now, most of the 1.4 million people in Equatorial Guinea live in the poverty.
The country is also suffering a double economic shock due to the coronavirus pandemic and a fall in the price of crude oil, which provides about three-quarters of state revenue.
State media have provided wall-to-wall coverage of the disaster, including calls for missing children, a rarity in a country that human rights activists consider one of the most repressive in Africa and where evil is often suppressed. news.
Okenve said the magnitude of the tragedy had left the government with no choice.
“If there’s information coming out, it’s because it’s impossible to control,” he said.