At least 66 people were injured this Thursday in Seychelles due to an explosion in an explosives warehouse that forced the declaration of a “state of emergency”” in the country that was in force during the day until it was lifted at 6:00 p.m. local time (2:00 p.m. GMT), reported the Seychellois president, Wavel Ramkalawan.

The explosion occurred in the CCCL explosives warehouse in the Providence industrial estate on Mahé, the largest island in this tourist archipelago in the Indian Ocean and where the capital, Victoria, is located, which is home to the majority of the country’s population. “During the last ten years there were major concerns about the storage of explosives at CCCL,” the president admitted at a press conference in Victoria.

“Four containers of explosives exploded and an evaluation is being carried out right now,” said the president, quoted by local media. Ramkalawan, who has declared “shocked” due to the tragedy, he stressed that “The damage is enormous and many families “My heart is heavy at this moment and I know that many families are being affected,” said the president, who described the state of the disaster area, on the eastern coast of Mahé, “as if we were going through a war”.

The rain made the situation worse

The international airport has also suffered damage, despite being about four kilometers away. “The Seychelles international airport remains operational and there are inter-island ferry services for visitors,” authorities said on the social network X (formerly Twitter). Likewise, the heavy rains last night caused serious flooding and landslides of land on the island, which caused the death of at least three people. The “calamities” of the explosion and rainfall, as the president described them, pushed the Government to declare a state of emergency.

“Everyone is asked to stay at home.. All schools will be closed. Only essential service workers and people in transit will be allowed free movement,” Ramkalawan said in a statement prior to the press conference. The president made this decision “to allow emergency services to carry out essential work.” The president of the African Union (AU) Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, sent his support to the island country.

“The AU family firmly sympathizes and prays with President Ramkalawan, the Government and the people of Seychelles in the face of torrential rains following a powerful explosion on the island of Mahé that has caused tragic loss of life and massive damage to infrastructure,” Mahamat wrote on social network X.