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Maputo declares days of mourning after bomb deaths

Mozambique on Friday declared three days of national mourning after an explosion at an arms depot in the capital killed nearly 100 people and injured hundreds more, many of them children.

Exploding bombs, mines and rounds of ammunition set off others around them in the country's largest arms depot late on Thursday, in a series of blasts that could be heard around the city.

"In Maputo hospitals, we registered 96 people dead and more than 400 injured," Health Minister Ivo Garrido told a press conference.

Antonio Luis Assis da Costa, an orthopedic surgeon at the Maputo Central Hospital, said doctors there had seen 223 patients since Thursday, 43 of whom were still hospitalized.

"Most of them are people who have had amputations, head injuries and some burns," he said.

On Friday evening, national television, TvM, reported that people were streaming to the Maputo Central Hospital to donate blood -- anyone from Cabinet ministers and parliamentarians to students and waiters.

With a part of the airport still closed for security reasons, flights were delayed and some rerouted to Johannesburg.

Government spokesman Luis Covane said an extraordinary Cabinet meeting decided on Friday to declare three days of national mourning, and to set up an independent commission of inquiry into the cause of the blasts.

A special ministerial task team, including the ministers of defense and social welfare, would also be created to consider what humanitarian assistance was required.

Explosives rocketed from the armory, near the impoverished neighbourhood of Magoanine on Thursday, landing on nearby houses which went up in flames, causing residents to flee in panic.

Soaring daytime temperatures are thought to have caused the blast.

Firefighters at the sealed-off area used massive hoses to dampen down the area around the armory, while army and civilian volunteers stacked up mortar shells which had landed in nearby houses.

Blazes ignited by the explosions were only brought under control on Friday.

Buildings up to 10km away sustained structural damage and residents have been warned to stay away from their homes for the next seven days in case of secondary explosions.

Most of those injured were children, Bonifacio Antonio, spokesman for the country's disaster management services said.

"Very many of the casualties were children. There are so many children ... a lot of children were running in the streets," frightened by the initial blast and then hit by the impact of subsequent explosions.

The explosion of 20 tonnes of obsolete arms and munitions is the fourth of its kind since the armory was built in the 1980s.

President Armando Guebeza vowed at the scene of the explosion that the government would relocate the armory away from the city.
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