Seychelles: Sixty-six people injured in explosion at explosives warehouse; the state of emergency declared in the archipelago

The Seychelles archipelago declared a state of emergency on Thursday, December 7, urging its residents to stay at home, following an explosion and flooding. Sixty-six people were injured in an explosion in an explosives warehouse, announced the president of the Indian Ocean archipelago, Wavel Ramkalawan, who said he was “shocked”. All the injured are currently hospitalized, he added.

“Following an explosion in the CCCL explosives warehouse which caused major damage (…) and significant destruction caused by heavy rains, the President declared a state of emergency for today » Thursday, the office of the president of the archipelago had declared earlier. “All schools will be closed. Only workers employed in essential sectors will be allowed to travel, to allow emergency services to do their crucial work,” he added.

The explosion took place in the Providence industrial zone on Mahé and caused enormous damage on site and in the surrounding area, added the presidency without going into detail. Mahé is the largest island in the archipelago, where 87% of the 98,000 inhabitants live. “Seychelles International Airport continues to operate, as do passenger ferries between the islands,” official tourism site Visit Seychelles said on X.

Torrential rains

Floods caused by heavy rains have also caused at least two deaths in the country. According to the public television channel SBC, heavy rains caused major damage on Wednesday evening in several areas of Mahé. Photos posted on his Facebook account show collapsed houses, landslides and large cracks in the island’s roads.

East Africa and the Indian Ocean have been hit for weeks by torrential rains and floods linked to El Niño, which have displaced more than 1 million people in Somalia and killed more than 300 in the region . According to the United Nations (UN), the situation has been aggravated by the joint impact of El Niño in the Pacific, which causes abnormally high temperatures in the ocean, and the Indian Ocean Dipole, a difference in ocean surface temperatures between its western and eastern zones.