More than 600 people, mostly children, were pulled dead from a canal on Monday after fleeing massive explosions of a weapons dump, described by President Olusegun Obasanjo as a "monumental tragedy".
As the death toll climbed, anger turned on the military responsible for the devastating blasts which shattered windows and destroyed buildings around the centre of the city Sunday.
"This is my baby. This is my baby," wept one 38-year-old man as he held the slender body of his four-year-old daughter, her coffee-coloured skin dripping with water as she was pulled from the waters.
Angered by such scenes, Lagos State Governor Bola Tinubu put the blame squarely on the military for the accident at the poorly maintained armoury in Lagos, the second most populous city on the African continent.
"It is very tragic. It is a national disaster," Tinubu said as he visited the site of the drowning. "It was not caused by any government but by the military," he said.
Obasanjo, himself a former soldier and military ruler, visited the site of the explosion early Monday.
"What happened in Lagos was a monumental tragedy," he said in a statement on national television and radio on Monday evening. "Over 600 people mostly children and youths died in the disaster. It was a national disaster."
Obasanjo also appealed for donations from the public for the victims of the catastrophe and said an inquiry would be held.
"The military must carry out an inquiry to find out exactly what happened, how it happened, who is to blame, if anyone is to blame, and what is to be done to prevent any reoccurrence," the president earlier.
He also said flags will be flown at half mast in all public places nationwide, and prayers held in churches and mosques across the country, without specifying when.
Edwin Ojila, owner of a bar destroyed by a shell, was too angry for an inquiry.
"The army. They ruin this country for so many years and now they scatter (destroy) our city. They are too much. No one can ever want them again," he said.
State-run Radio Nigeria broke into its evening broadcasts to announce a confirmed death toll from the tragedy -- caused by panic at the series of technicolour arms explosions that rocked Lagos -- of more than 600.
Ordnance rained down all over the city late Sunday as fireballs flared into the night sky, rockets and a nearby petrol dump also exploding, after the armoury at the central Ikeja barracks caught fire.
Panic set in and hundreds of thousands of people fled.
In Isolo, the flight itself was the cause of the tragedy.
The district lies between the army barracks in Ikeja and the airport but is bisected by the massive canal.
Despite living in a lagoon-side city, many Lagosians cannot swim -- there are no public swimming pools or swimming lessons -- and that was a major factor in the tragedy.
Appearing on television late Sunday to declare that the explosions did not signal the country's seventh military coup, the embarrassed Ikeja garrison commanding officer, Brigadier-General George Emdin, apologised to Lagosians.
"On behalf of the military I would like to apologise. On behalf of the military we are sorry," he said.
The explosion was the result of an accident in "an old ammunition depot with high-calibre bombs".
"This accident happened before the high authorities could do what was needed," he said.
This was unlikely to placate everyone. Members of the Army Wives Association told AFP the military had been warned before about the weapons dump after a smaller blast last year.
(China Daily January 29, 2002)
