Explosion stories from Lagos, Beirut, and Tennessee
2 December 2021 By Abiodun Giwa
From the Tennessee explosion on 2020 Christmas day morning (Courtesy: WKBW.com)
Recent news report about Christmas morning explosion in Nashville, Tennessee, in the United States, recalled an earlier explosions in Beirut, Lebanon, and another one in Lagos, Nigeria. It also reminded me of the time I lived in a place called Mafoluku in Lagos, Nigeria; and an evening of a Sunday in January 2002, when I fled from my home with my children following explosions at the Ikeja Military Cantonment - about 50 blocks away to my house.
The entire neighborhood was thrown into a commotion as residents sought ways to escape from the danger caused by explosions at the cantonment that darkened the the sky pierced by massive balls of fire. People fled to various directions. I went with my first son and my only daughter at the time to a direction that my feet took me, while my two younger sons who were with me in the house at the time of the explosion went to a different direction that the journey took them.
The explosion and the confusion that accompanied lasted into the evening time. After the explosion was over, my wife arrived home and the search for our two younger sons began. We jubilated when my two younger sons returned home after a period of apprehension. Few hours after their return, the family seated and talked about the different directions we went to escape from the explosion. My two younger children explained they went through a canal towards the international airport, and they returned through the same path. I explained that myself, my first son and daughter, did not go beyond the gate of the Concord Press, where we stayed to determine if we needed to run farther.
The following day, news reports revealed that a number of fleeing neighbors were trapped in a canal and they died. I called my children's attention to the news report. I asked them to explain what they saw at the canal. They said the canal was obviously unsafe, and that it was fate that took them through the canal on their way fleeing the explosion and also when they were returning home under the dark of the night.
News reports from the Beirut explosion showed that the explosion was caused by careless storage of ammonium nitrate at the port of the city of Beirut. The explosion killed 204 people, caused 6,500 injuries, property worth $15billion damaged, and left 300,000 people homeless. In the Nigerian cantonment explosion, the Guardian newspaper reported that as bodies were counted after a fire ignited an army ammunitions dump the number of victims counted went beyond 600 and that the victims included children. "The number of victims did not die under the exploding shells. Most were hauled from canals into which they jumped or were driven by the huge crowd fleeing the shrapnel descending from the sky. Others died in the explosion at the barrack, a small town built in largely poor residential area," the report said.
The explosion in Tennessee in the United States is still the most weird experience so far. Christmas morning is a quiet period that most people are still on their beds after merriment through the night. In the middle of that quietness in Tennessee, a weird announcement came from a weird box vehicle warning people to flee and it gave a time allowed to run for safety. Some police officers heard the announcement and instead of fleeing to safety, they embarked on knocking doors to alert people to run for their lives! And many lives who would have been either caught indoor were saved, except the weird loner who set up the explosives for only God knows why. News reports said he died in the explosion that also consumed his weird box vehicle.
Many people believe it was fate that placed those police officers in place as street-bureaucrats to save lives in Tennessee. Just as fate took my two younger children through a canal in Mafoluku in Lagos. The same canal that consumed many other lives that fled from the same danger caused by the Ikeja Cantonment explosion in 2002.
The entire neighborhood was thrown into a commotion as residents sought ways to escape from the danger caused by explosions at the cantonment that darkened the the sky pierced by massive balls of fire. People fled to various directions. I went with my first son and my only daughter at the time to a direction that my feet took me, while my two younger sons who were with me in the house at the time of the explosion went to a different direction that the journey took them.
The explosion and the confusion that accompanied lasted into the evening time. After the explosion was over, my wife arrived home and the search for our two younger sons began. We jubilated when my two younger sons returned home after a period of apprehension. Few hours after their return, the family seated and talked about the different directions we went to escape from the explosion. My two younger children explained they went through a canal towards the international airport, and they returned through the same path. I explained that myself, my first son and daughter, did not go beyond the gate of the Concord Press, where we stayed to determine if we needed to run farther.
The following day, news reports revealed that a number of fleeing neighbors were trapped in a canal and they died. I called my children's attention to the news report. I asked them to explain what they saw at the canal. They said the canal was obviously unsafe, and that it was fate that took them through the canal on their way fleeing the explosion and also when they were returning home under the dark of the night.
News reports from the Beirut explosion showed that the explosion was caused by careless storage of ammonium nitrate at the port of the city of Beirut. The explosion killed 204 people, caused 6,500 injuries, property worth $15billion damaged, and left 300,000 people homeless. In the Nigerian cantonment explosion, the Guardian newspaper reported that as bodies were counted after a fire ignited an army ammunitions dump the number of victims counted went beyond 600 and that the victims included children. "The number of victims did not die under the exploding shells. Most were hauled from canals into which they jumped or were driven by the huge crowd fleeing the shrapnel descending from the sky. Others died in the explosion at the barrack, a small town built in largely poor residential area," the report said.
The explosion in Tennessee in the United States is still the most weird experience so far. Christmas morning is a quiet period that most people are still on their beds after merriment through the night. In the middle of that quietness in Tennessee, a weird announcement came from a weird box vehicle warning people to flee and it gave a time allowed to run for safety. Some police officers heard the announcement and instead of fleeing to safety, they embarked on knocking doors to alert people to run for their lives! And many lives who would have been either caught indoor were saved, except the weird loner who set up the explosives for only God knows why. News reports said he died in the explosion that also consumed his weird box vehicle.
Many people believe it was fate that placed those police officers in place as street-bureaucrats to save lives in Tennessee. Just as fate took my two younger children through a canal in Mafoluku in Lagos. The same canal that consumed many other lives that fled from the same danger caused by the Ikeja Cantonment explosion in 2002.
Widget is loading comments...
