Pistoff, here is an article. It happened almost a year ago. It you mean WTS magazine, I think it is either the 3/1/03 or 3/8/03.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/28/world/main325783.shtml
Confusion And Anger In Lagos LAGOS, Nigeria, Jan. 30, 2002
Despite growing public anger, the army said Wednesday it had no immediate plans to move a weapons dump out of a crowded Lagos neighborhood where more than 600 people were killed in a series of huge explosions and the resulting panic.
The defense minister said earlier that the dump would be relocated after the disaster Sunday night, when explosions at the base in the heavily populated northern suburb of Ikeja propelled shells and other debris for miles around for hours.
The dump was built decades ago when few people lived in Ikeja and since then has been "swallowed up by the metropolis, and it has become an inappropriate location," Defense Minister Yakubu Danjuma said Tuesday.
Yet army spokesman Col. Felix Chukwumah said Wednesday he was "not aware" of any plans to relocate the base. He said a decision would likely be taken after a lengthy military investigation.
Dozens of bodies continued to arrive at city morgues, but officials said they did not have an updated casualty toll on Wednesday.
The poorly equipped mortuaries have been stretched to the limit and attendants said they feared decomposing bodies could spark an epidemic in the metropolis of over 10 million people.
"We registered a total of 4,000 people reported missing between Sunday and yesterday," Red Cross spokesman Patrick Bawa said. "Out of this we found 2,825 as of last night."
Bawa said most of the missing were children aged between four and 11. The Red Cross was also looking after 15 children separated from their parents after exploding bombs triggered a mass stampede in chaotic Lagos, Africa's biggest city.
Newspapers said the final figure from a catastrophe that damaged a huge number of residential and public buildings could be more than 2,000.
Thousands of people mourning those killed faced the grim task on Wednesday of retrieving the bodies of loved ones before city authorities emptied mortuaries into mass graves.
"The bodies are already decomposing," said a mortuary attendant in the district of Isolo, in the neighborhood of the Ikeja barracks where the armory is located.
"This makes identification difficult, especially because they are in a pile," he added.
.
President Olusegun Obasanjo on Tuesday declared a day of national mourning, saying more than 600 had died. Many of the dead were women and children who drowned after plunging accidentally into the Oke Afa canal while fleeing during the blasts that began
Sunday evening and went on until the next morning.
Sadness turned to rage against the military. Many blamed the military for storing weapons, including rockets and heavy artillery shells, in the neighborhood.
More anger stemmed from what many said was the total absence of security agents to help during the stampede that followed the blast, in a city of over 10 million people.
Human rights lawyer Olisa Agbakoba contrasted Obasanjo's attitude with U.S. President George W. Bush's handling of the September 11 attacks on New ork and Washington.
"This was almost our September 11," Agbakoba said. "Our president should sit down and direct things."
Member of Parliament Nduka Irabor said the president, who visited the devastated barracks on Monday, should have remained in Lagos rather than head off soon after for an official visit to a northern state.
The defense minister said the military had begun a private inquiry. In Abuja, Nigeria's two houses of parliament announced separate investigations into the blasts. The House of
Representatives also voted to ask Obasanjo not to make any foreign trips until the causes could be ascertained.
A delegation of senators on Wednesday toured the canal and nearby base, where Red Cross workers were distributing flour, sugar and other aid to survivors.
Lagos state Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu and other politicians accused the army of negligence. "We need to improve on the image of the armed forces," Tinubu said Tuesday.
Many Nigerians remain distrustful of the military following 15 years of corrupt and sometimes brutal dictatorship that ended with 1999 elections.
Some residents complained that lives could have been saved if authorities had built more bridges over a five-mile section of the canal where there is only one crossing.
Chukwumah said the explosions began when a fire spread to the depot, which is surrounded by crowded slums and working-class neighborhoods. The blasts propelled shrapnel and shock waves for miles, shattering windows six miles away at the international airport.
The army has acknowledged the storage facility at Ikeja was old and in need of revamping. A spokesman said he did not know how the fire started, but a police officer on Sunday it began at a nearby gas station.
State and military officials were quick to assure Nigerians that the fire was accidental and not a sign of military unrest. Rumors of coups had circulated for more than an hour after the blasts began.
Pope John Paul II sent a condolence message to Nigerian bishops, assuring his "closeness in prayer" for victims of the tragedy and for the rescue workers.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan sent a letter to the president expressing "deepest sympathy and condolences" to the government and people of Nigeria. He promised that the United Nations office in the country was "ready to provide any assistance it can."
Blondie
Edited by - Blondie on 20 January 2003 16:47:3
