Smaller blasts restrict efforts to reach victims after arms depot explosion killed more than 200 and flattened buildings
Small explosions shook Congo-Brazzaville for a second day after a fire in an arms depot caused violent blasts that flattened houses, businesses and churches, killed more than 200 people and left countless others trapped under debris.
Firefighters had put out the main blaze, in the north of Brazzaville, and were working to extinguish several smaller fires that were still burning on Monday.
A large crowd had gathered outside the municipal morgue which, along with a nearby hospital, had registered 206 deaths in the hours after the first explosion on Sunday.
Another seven bodies were brought in to the morgue In a two-hour spell on Monday, taking the death toll to at least 213. That number is expected to rise as rescuers begin clearing the debris, including that of the St Louis Catholic Church, where dozens of worshippers had been attending Sunday Mass.
Bienvenu Okyemi, a government spokesman, blamed a short circuit for the fire that set off the explosions. In a statement read to the nation, the president, Denis Sassou-Nguesso, described the disaster as "a tragic accident".
The country's defence minister tried to reassure Congo-Brazzaville, which is still recovering from a 1997 civil war, that the fire was not a sign of a coup.
The nation's rudimentary healthcare system is expected to be overwhelmed by the estimated 1,500 people injured in the blast.
One of the hospitals treating the wounded made an appeal for blood donors, according to the UN-run Radio Okapi, which is based in Kinshasa, the capital of the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.
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The smaller blasts on Monday hampered efforts to retrieve the injured and dead.
Condolences and offers of help poured in from around the world. The British foreign secretary, William Hague, said he was "greatly saddened" by the news of the tragedy.
Employees of a Chinese construction firm were among the dead. China's official Xinhua news agency reported that six Chinese nationals had died and another person was missing. Dozens of the firm's workers were injured.