Nigeria mourns Lagos blast dead

LAGOS, Nigeria -- Nigeria is observing a day of mourning for victims of a series of explosions at a military arms dump which officials say claimed 700 lives.

Government flags flew at half-mast on Tuesday, and officials said they feared the final death toll could number in the thousands.

As scores fled the scene Sunday, many were trampled to death in the chaos as they tried to cross a canal that blocked their escape route. Rescue officials retrieved dozens of bodies on Tuesday.

Angry residents blamed the country's military for the disaster, wanting to know why such an old weapons store was allowed to house such powerful bombs inside the city.

VIDEO Multiple explosions rock a Nigerian military armory in Lagos, leaving many missing and thousands homeless. Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, called it a monumental tragedy and demanded answers.

"There is the normal thing that we do, or that the military will have to do, which is when a situation like this occurs, the military must carry our an inquiry," he said.

Residents living in the disaster area said a smaller blast at the very same depot last year went unreported and no safety changes were made. They said the tragedy could have been very easily avoided.

Rescuers told Reuters they had found more bodies after resuming the search on Tuesday.

More than a dozen other deaths were reported by witnesses elsewhere in the city of over 10 million people.

Meanwhile, the survivors are demanding an independent investigation into the tragedy.

As the search continued for more bodies, residents said the death toll could have been much worse.

Visiting the disaster scene on Monday, Obasanjo told hundreds of soldiers and their families that the military would investigate the cause.

CNN's Jeff Koinange said: "Angry crowds jeered him, asking why the government allowed the military to have such sophisticated weapons at the site."

It was not immediately clear how many people died in the blasts themselves, though Army Brig. Gen. George Emdin told AP that there was "absolutely no one killed" inside the Ikeja armoury barracks.

The official view differed from that of Mustafa Igama, a soldier at the base, who told AP that he had seen "so many dead bodies" as he fled the scene.

Olusegun Ajayi, an officer at the base, said his home was destroyed and his three small children were missing.

"My wife and I don't know where they are," he said in tears.

Residents said that if Sunday night's explosions had happened on a weekday, around 3,000 children would have been attending three schools destroyed in the blasts.

"I think those who say God is a Nigerian are correct," said one soldier.

"We are fortunate that most of the weapons were stored underground; otherwise, the whole of Lagos could have been on fire."

About half the buildings at the site were destroyed, including two secondary schools and one primary school.

Femi Orewale, a student of the cantonment's Command Secondary School, said on Monday: "I am really shocked because if this thing had happened today, maybe all the students in the three schools (in the barracks) would have been killed."

As the explosions subsided, it became clear that many of the victims died after jumping into two canals during a mass panic triggered by the blasts.

Rescuers piled bodies on the banks of the murky waterways, used mainly to drain industrial waste.

Wailing parents looking for their children and others searching for lost siblings gathered around five bodies.

Shoes and Christian books littered the canal banks where victims, many apparently returning from church, jumped into the canal's industrial slush.

Both canals are narrow and relatively shallow, indicating many of the younger victims either suffocated in the stampede or choked on toxic waste.

"I have been searching everywhere for my wife and two children since daybreak," said one man. "I don't know if they are still alive or if they are among the dead bodies already taken away."

Army spokesman Col. Felix Chukwumah said the explosions were apparently set off by a fire that spread to the barracks.

He did not know how the fire started, though at least one police officer said Sunday it was touched off by an explosion at a nearby gas station.

The base is surrounded by crowded slums and working-class neighbourhoods in a city of more than 12 million.

The force of the blasts were such that windows were shattered at the international airport 10 kilometres (six miles) away.