The death toll from a series of explosions in a military barracks in Equatorial Guinea has risen to 98, the health ministry said on Monday after volunteers searched the rubble for bodies.
At least 615 people were injured in the blasts on Sunday, which started with a fire at the Nkoantoma Military Base in the coastal city of Bata, according to the defence ministry.
Citing Vice President Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, the health ministry put the death toll at 98, more than triple an earlier estimate of 31 killed.
Of the wounded, 299 remained hospitalised, the ministry wrote on Twitter.
Equatorial Guinea’s health ministry posted on Twitter that it had prepared a mental health brigade made up of psychiatrists, psychologists and nurses to attend to the victims of the blast.
“The damages are not only physical but also mental,” the ministry said.
Images published by local media showed bodies wrapped in sheets and lined up on the side of a road, with children being pulled out from under piles of broken concrete and twisted metal.
