Forty dead in Nigeria explosion
An investigation was under way today into the cause of a powerful explosion that tore apart a bank and dozens of apartments above it in Nigeria’s crowded commercial capital, killing at least 40 people and trapping many others.
Police were investigating a range of motives – including that the blast was part of a bank robbery plot. Looting and bloody fights broke out as hundreds of young men grabbed fistfuls of cash from the flattened bank and battled over them.
In the chaos, trapped victims screamed to be rescued and onlookers sobbed as rescuers retrieved bloody, broken bodies.
The Red Cross said searchers had recovered more than 30 dead and 32 injured. Ten of the wounded died later at Lagos General Hospital.
Many more victims were believed to be caught in the rubble, and the death toll could rise, said Emmanuel Ijewere, president of the Nigeria Red Cross.
The blast was on Lagos Island, a high-rise district of banks and other businesses packed side-by-side with poor, densely populated residential blocks.
The four-storey bank building collapsed, bringing three floors of apartments crashing down on the ground floor Prudent Bank. Fires flared briefly after the blast, which could be heard for miles and sent a tower of smoke into the sky.
Residents said some victims had been blocks away from the bank building.
“My uncle was in the balcony of our house talking with a friend and the force of the explosion threw them down,” resident Remi Oyebanji said. “They’re both dead.”
Resident Omololu Kassim, who was helping carry the victims, said he saw 40 dead and as many injured. Local radio put the toll at 50 or more. The blast came as many were at church, preventing an even higher death toll.
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo flew in from the Nigerian capital of Abuja for a brief visit to the blast site. He made no comments at the scene.
