The death toll from a fire and explosion at a weapons depot near
the capital's airport is at least 83 and is likely to rise further
as more bodies are recovered from the charred remains of houses,
the health minister said on Friday.
Ivo Garrido said that at least 300 people were injured, many of
them children.
Garrido said the casualties included military personnel working
on the site and civilians living in nearby houses in a poor,
densely populated neighborhood.
President Armando Guebuza toured the stricken area, visited
victims in hospital and appealed to the nation which has been
battered by floods and a cyclone in the past two months to be
calm.
"We mourn what is happening," said Guebuza, who canceled a
planned visit to South Africa and summoned an emergency Cabinet
meeting.
The defense ministry said high temperatures that have gripped
Maputo, the capital, in recent months were the most likely cause of
Thursday's explosion. The temperature Thursday was 35 C. The
searing heat was blamed for a smaller explosion at the depot in
January when three people were injured.
The Interior Ministry ordered police and firefighters to help
the military in destroying all remaining ammunition at the depot,
which was stocked with obsolete Soviet-made weapons used during
Mozambique's long civil war.
The ministry also ordered police reinforcements to stop looters
from ransacking houses abandoned by their owners because of the
inferno.
Maputo airport, which was closed late on Thursday, was reopened
just after midday Friday. But the city struggled to return to
normality and the area around the ammunition depot remained out of
bounds.
Television showed images of bodies buried in the rubble of
destroyed houses and of heavily bandaged victims at Maputo's main
hospital.
Hundreds of people milled around the hospital, waiting for news
of loved ones. Authorities said many children had been separated
from their parents in the chaos and panic that engulfed the port
city at the height of the explosions.
At the height of the inferno, some city center windows were
shattered by the intense heat. Buildings also shook with the impact
of the explosions. Rockets detonated by the fire rained down on
residential areas.
Radio stations were flooded with callers complaining that the
ammunition depot was situated near residential areas.
Mozambique, a former Portuguese colony 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 defense 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.
(China Daily March 24, 2007)
