By Toye Olori
LAGOS, Feb 5 2003 (IPS)

The death toll from the weekend blast continues to rise, with 30 bodies recovered and more than 500 persons made homeless in Lagos, this week.

Sunday’s explosion destroyed three buildings and left several others in a state of near collapse at Idumagbo and Pedro streets in Lagos, the commercial capital of Nigeria.

Some survivors have refused to leave the scene of the blast, looking for the bodies of their loved ones, as excavators dig deeper and deeper into the debris. ”Not that I expect to see my husband alive but at least, if the body is found, I would like to give him a decent burial,” a woman, who gave her name only as Taibat, told IPS on Wednesday.

Kayode Olagunju, of the Federal Road Safety Commission, who is leading the rescue team, says he expects more bodies to be recovered, as the excavation work gets closer to the basement of the three-storey building that was reduced to rubble by the explosion.

As rescue workers get down to the most crucial part of their work, residents of Lagos are speculating about the cause of the blast. ”That blast was not a gas explosion at all, as I heard some officials saying. It is a bomb, that is why the destruction was so huge,” says a survivor, whose apartment was damaged by the explosion.

Fuelling further speculation, Nigeria’s Channels television, a private station, claimed a bombshell was dugout at Pedro street late Tuesday.

The ”discovery” of the object came as the bodies of local councillor and Imam of Oko-awo Mosque were pulled out of the rubble Tuesday.

Earlier, a Lagos State government official was quoted as saying that the explosion was caused by a welder who was working at the basement of one of the building unaware that there was a can of fuel. The fuel, he said, caught fire which led to the explosion of the gas cylinder he was using. The state government had ruled out sabotage, describing the explosion as an accident.

The government has formed a committee to investigate the cause of the blast. Bomb disposal unit of the Nigerian Police is working with the team of excavators for any clue to the cause of the explosion.

In a statement, Tunji Oseni, a top aide to President Olusegun Obasanjo, called for ”strict compliance with building codes and standards in Lagos state”.

”The state government should work hand-in-hand with the federal ministry of works and housing to enhance fire fighting capacity and capability within Lagos state,” he added. The Sunday explosion came just one week after Nigeria marked the first anniversary of the bomb blast at Ikeja military barracks, Lagos, Jan 27. More than 1,000 people died and 5,000 others were displaced in the blast.

”If the government really want to help us let them register our names and give us financial support, so that we can look for accommodation on our own. I do not want to end up like the survivors of Ikeja bomb explosion, who were ejected from their temporary camps after one year without any compensation,” says a survivor of the Sunday blast.

Nigeria, with a population of 120 million, ranks number 121 in the list of disaster prone countries of the world, according to the World Disaster Report 2002, released mid last year.

The Report, published by the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said 96,786 Nigerians were killed, or affected by disasters, between 1992 and 2001.

The list includes a fire at a rubber factory in Ikorodu, a suburb of Lagos, in which 29 persons lost their lives in October last year.

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