BRAZZAVILLE: Around 200 people were killed on Sunday when an arms dump exploded in Brazzaville, capital of the Congo Republic, a senior official in the presidency said, citing hospital sources.
Hundreds more were injured by the blasts which rocked the riverside capital of the oil-producing nation early in the day, flattening houses near the scene and sending a plume of smoke high above the city.
“According to sources at the central hospital we're talking of around 200 dead and many injured,” Betu Bangana, head of protocol in the president's office in Brazzaville, told Reuters by telephone.
“Some people are still (trapped) in their houses... They're saying the entire neighbourhood of Mpila has been destroyed.”
Defence Minister Charles Zacharie Bowao dismissed any talk of a coup attempt or mutiny, and told state radio that the explosions had been caused by a fire in the arms depot in the Regiment Blinde base in the riverside Mpila neighbourhood.
Panic also spread to Kinshasa, across the Congo River which separates the former French colony from the larger Democratic Republic of Congo, where windows were shattered by the force of the blasts around 700 metres (770 yards) away. Both governments called for calm.
A Reuters witness in Brazzaville said residents fled the blast area, which is near a heavily populated neighbourhood and was blocked off by the security forces as a military helicopter flew overhead. Fleeing residents said houses in the area had been flattened.
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