The blasts at a military barracks in Bata killed 98 people, the health ministry said, citing the vice president.

Around 600 people have been previously reported as injured and President Teodoro Obiang and Gamer says almost all the cities, homes and buildings have been damaged.

It has a population of over 250,000 people mhm.

He has attributed the accident to negligence related to the handling of dynamite.

Images published by local media showed bodies wrapped in sheets lining the side of the road and Children being pulled from under piles of broken concrete and twisted metal.

The explosions come as the former Spanish colony suffers a double economic shock caused by the global health crisis and a drop in the price of crude oil, which accounts for around three quarters of state revenues.

The majority of Equatorial Guinea's 1.4 million people live in poverty, and the government has called for international support for the search and rescue effort and to rebuild.