More than 400 were injured and many went missing under the rubble, the ministry had said after the massive blast on Sunday.
Resident Carmen Alebeso said the scenes resembled the detonation of an atomic bomb. Alebeso told CNN she was in her car when the first explosion occurred around 2 p.m. local time on Sunday.
“It was a huge noise and everyone got out of their cars and we were all in shock. We saw the typical image of an atomic bomb in front of us. It was a confusing and desperate situation, people were screaming and crying,” she said.
All buildings in the area had been completely destroyed and bodies were still being recovered from the rubble in the area on Monday, she added.
Alebeso added that medical attention was not reaching those who needed it the most.
“We have three big hospitals and they all collapsed. So many people were injured, it was terrible. People were crying to come in to get treatment. It was a terrifying situation,” she said.
“We are asking for the contribution of blood donors,” the Health Ministry said on Twitter, calling on voluntary health personnel to go to Bata Regional Hospital.
It said health workers and the fire service provided care to victims and transferred people with serious injuries to hospitals.
In a statement read in local media late on Sunday, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo blamed the country’s military for mishandling dynamite and other explosives kept under his wing – which he said led to the blasts after individuals suspected farmers burned in a field adjacent to the military base.
“Bata was the site of an accident caused by the negligence and carelessness of a unit charged with the care and protection of the dynamite and explosives stores next to the ammunition at the Nkoantoma military base, which caught fire by burning nearby land by neighbors, which caused an explosion in the storage of dynamite and explosives and then the ammunition, “the statement said.
President Mbasogo appealed to the international community to help his country restore the public and private infrastructure damaged by the explosion – which he says will require “significant economic resources.”
The president said the tragic incident took place at a time when Equatorial Guinea is still reeling from the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.
In a statement later Sunday, the Spanish embassy asked its citizens in Equatorial Guinea to “stay at home.”
The embassy has not provided further details about the stay-at-home advice. However, it has issued emergency numbers for all Spanish nationals in the country.
Equatorial Guinea is one of the smallest countries in Africa, with a population of just over 850,000. Bata is one of the two cities in the country with more than 30,000 inhabitants, the other being the capital of the island of Malabo.