- (AFP) - Many people were feared dead after a fire ripped
through a military armoury in Nigeria's main city of Lagos, sending
hundreds
of missiles careering into residential neighbourhoods and shooting huge
balls of flame into the night sky.
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- Plunging the largest city in black Africa into scenes
reminiscent of a war zone, blasts echoed repeatedly as missiles landed
up to 30 kilometres (20 miles) from where the fire started.
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- Panicked by the explosions, hundreds of thousands of
terrified city residents started to flee the area around the barracks which
bore the brunt of the blasts.
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- "I have to go. I have to get out of here,"
said Francis Obi, an accountant living just across the road from the
cantonment,
as a sea of people poured down the roads in the area, struggling to
leave.
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- "It is panic, total panic" said Chima Kalu,
a computer technician with a media group, caught up in the crush. "The
whole place is up in flames. Everything is burning".
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- The pandemonium was caused by the explosion shortly
before
dusk of the main military armoury next door to the principal barracks in
this city of more than 10 million people.
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- Shortly after 6:00 p.m. (1700 GMT) Sunday, a fire which
started in a street market in the Ikeja district spread to the armoury
next door.
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- Minutes later, a first of two devastating blasts boomed
across the city, shaking the walls and windows of office blocks.
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- After a 10-minute lull, a whole series of explosions
rang out. Panic set in as missiles started to fly around the city.
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- Traffic snarled up on Lagos's freeways and bridges as
people tried to work out what was going on.
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- A police spokesman told AFP he feared many people would
have died in the heavily-populated barracks, home to soldiers and their
families, and the surrounding area.
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- "We do not have any death toll yet, but it is going
to be bad," he said.
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- In a special emergency broadcast breaking into normal
programming, Lagos State Governor Bola Tinubu told residents the blasts
were the result of an accidental fire, not a military coup.
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- President Olusegun Obasanjo was safe, Tinubu said.
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- In the capital Abuja, an AFP correspondent said entrances
and exits to the Aso Rock seat of the presidency had all been
sealed.
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- Officials said the president was actually at his home
at Otta outside Lagos at the weekend. He was expected to make a statement
later, they said.
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- In Africa's most populous country, one with a long
history
of military rule, speculation had immediately turned to the idea of a
possible
coup, but Tinubu dismissed this.
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- "It is a question of accident, not a military
invasion,"
Tinubu said, with the military commander of the barracks sitting alongside
him.
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- "There is an accident in the armoury depot...
accident
of high calibre bombs and they will continue to explode for some
time,"
he said.
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- "The general in command is here with me. Everywhere
should be calm. You should stay at home. All speculations about military
changes of power is not correct," Tinubu said.
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- People nearby were being evacuated, he said.
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- The military commander then apologized for what had
happened,
calling it, also, an accident.
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- "Let me first and foremost apologize," he said,
visibly shaken by the events.
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- "Effort has been made to try to improve the storing
facilities (at the armoury) but unfortunately this happened first,"
he said.
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- Nigeria has been hit by six military coups in the past
but the military handed over power in 1999 to a civilian regime and a new
coup was not thought imminent, diplomats and experts said.
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- Copyright © 2002 AFP. All rights reserved.
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