Johannesburg — At least 20 and as many as 30 people were reported dead, Sunday, in Nigerias main city, Lagos, after an explosion ripped through an apartment and shopping complex and destroyed the facade, walls and windows of a bank.
The blast (at 10h00 GMT) echoed across the city in the downtown business district of Lagos Island, close to the central mosque. Reports said up to three apartment blocks were destroyed in a heavily-populated complex also housing businesses and shops.
The explosion also tore open the front of the Prudent Bank. Reports said looters moved in to steal cash and empty the safes, as the security and emergency desperately tried to save lives and search for bodies.
Police fired warning shots into the air to disperse the huge crowds gathered outside the scene of the blast, hampering the rescue efforts. Some residents reportedly tried to stop the thieves, but witnesses said they saw youths, known locally as "area boys," stuffing money bags into a car boot (trunk) and making off with their spoils.
Miscreants fought with machetes and sticks over more loot, which included computers, other office equipment and whatever they could lay their hands on.
"When a disaster like this explosion occurs in a commercial building, its normal anywhere in the world for hoodlums to try and take advantage of it," Lagos State Information Commissioner, Dele Alake, told reporters. He added that the security forces "contained" the wave of pillaging. But looters continued to roam the streets.
Reuters reported that panicked crowds scattered at the sound of shots, by heavily armed police who fired into the air as they tried to free the area, to make way for the emergency vehicles, calling out through a loud hailer "Let us through to help our brothers."
Witnesses reported a trail of blood along the cramped streets and narrow alleyways of Lagos Island, strewn with glass. Distraught onlookers wailed in shock at the horror and mayhem.
Security forces, at first overwhelmed by the swell of the crowds, attempted to cordon off the blast zone. But they had to abandon their plans after residents, fearful that they too would lose their property to the thugs, threw stones at the officers.
As a bulldozer and heavy cranes began clearing the debris, the police and the Red Cross apparently failed to convince local people to move out of other buildings the authorities felt were in danger of collapsing - because of concerns that the looters would ransack their belongings.
Despite hours of chaos, rescue workers, security officers and local civilians struggled to dig out the dead and injured. Residents pulled at slabs of concrete and twisted metal to free survivors believed to be trapped in the rubble of the collapsed residential and commercial buildings "Some people may still be rescued," Alake told journalists at the scene.
The Red Cross said 22 had been killed, with another 41 people being treated in hospital, six in critical condition. Other reports put the number of dead far higher - at up to 50.
Lagos State Governor, Bola Tinubu, told journalists "As Im speaking to you now, there are over 30 bodies in the mortuary and there could still be many more dead in the debris."
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo later made a brief stop at the site of the wrecked buildings. Lagos residents demanded an explanation for this latest tragedy from their leader, who is hoping to be re-elected later this year.
Police said it was too early to say what was responsible for the blast, which was heard more than 3km (two miles) away from the densely-inhabited commercial heart of Lagos Island. Speculation on the cause of the explosion ranged from an accidental gas leak or a bomb to a poorly-coordinated bank robbery.
Lagos, Nigerias teeming metropolis and former capital city, is home to 12 million people. Lagos Island used to serve as the business hub and commercial heart of the country. But the island has become run down since the federal capital was moved to the purpose-built central city of Abuja.
Nigeria has witnessed a number of deadly incidents recently. Sundays was the worst such disaster since a fire gutted the offices of the national oil parastatal in December.
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A year ago last week, in January 2002, more than 1,000 people were killed in a fire which set off a series of explosions at an arms depot in another part of Lagos. Most of the dead were crushed in the ensuing stampede. Many others, including dozens of children, drowned in a nearby waterway as they desperately tried to escape.
Explosions sparked at pipeline installations, by saboteurs siphoning and stealing oil, are another tragic reality in Nigeria, leading to the deaths of several hundred people in recent years.
In a separate incident, reports Sunday from Nigerias southern petroleum-producing city of Warri said several buildings were set alight in a third straight day of ethnic clashes.
Reuters reported an initial outbreak of street clashes, Friday, in Warri between the Itsekiri and the Urhobo tribes, which left several people dead. The city was reported calm on Sunday morning, until the upsurge of renewed fighting.
Warri residents said political factors may have triggered the street battles, after a rerun of parliamentary primaries for Obasanjos governing Peoples Democratic Party, held Friday in the Niger Delta region.
