Photo: PIUS UTOMI EKPEI / AFP / Getty Images
Explosions at a military depot in Lagos, Nigeria, triggered a stampede of people, during which more than 1 died.000 persons.
The Ikeja Arsenal was located just north of Lagos city center and housed a large barracks and ammunition depot. On 27 January 2002, on a Sunday afternoon, a market was set up in the area where a fire broke out, which spread to an ammunition area and, around 6 pm, it caused a huge explosion.
The explosion immediately razed an area of several square blocks and killed about 300 people, mostly soldiers and their families. The blast was heard and felt 30 miles away and tremors brought down houses and shattered windows up to 10 miles away.
The situation worsened when the explosion rained ammunition remnants over a wide swath of the northern side of Lagos . This caused fires to break out throughout the city.
The explosions and fires caused widespread panic in part of the city.
Lagos has a large canal, the Oke-Afa, which crosses the city from north to south; Across the canal is a banana plantation, where apparently much of the panicked crowd thought they might seek shelter in the banana fields, but they couldn’t remember the location. of the channel in the dark. As thousands of people advanced into the fields, at least 600 people drowned in the canal.
Stampedes in other parts of the city killed hundreds more, most of them children separated from their parents . Approximately 5.000 people were injured in total, overwhelming the city’s hospitals.
The explosions continued throughout the night and into the following afternoon. Due to the lack of firefighters in Lagos, the flames did not stop until more than 24 hours later. At least 12.000 people were left homeless as a result of the disaster.
Later, the commander of Ikeja issued a statement: “On behalf of the armed forces, we are sorry… efforts have been made in the recent past to try to improve the storage facilities, but this accident occurred before the higher authorities could do so. necessary”.
In fact, it turned out that city officials had told the military to modernize the facility the year before, after a small explosion, but practically nothing was done. had done nothing.
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