By Archibong Jeremiah
Central Bank of Nigeria, Calabar Cross River State capital, Friday morning witnessed an explosion that left behind several casualties.
The explosion according to eye witnesses who spoke to CrossRiverWatch, occurred between the hours of 10 and 11am.
Mr. Chris Ndu, Manager of De Choice fast food Calabar, neighbors to CBN Calabar, recounts what he experienced.
His words: “We were inside my office when we observed a sound and we came out to ask questions as to what is happening suddenly we saw a very high smoke at the Central Bank building most customers started running away at the end of the day we had the police who came before the fire service. They have evacuated so many persons affected. This thing happened an hour ago, approximately at about 10:30 and 11am, the sound we heard was very heavy and I cannot ascertain what exploded.”
Another eye witness, Engr. Solomon Isogon said, “I was just coming from the governor’s office on reaching close to the roundabout here, heavy explosion from CBN came up suddenly, it was intensive but to our dismay the whole place was smoky, papers from CBN scattered across the road. So many casualties, vehicles more than seven have been parked as at the time we left there to really see what was happening at Naval hospital it was filled to the brim and casualties were been relocated to the General hospital and nearby hospital.”
As at the time of filling this report, there was no official position on the cause of explosion from CBN but some eye witnesses attribute the cause to electrical malfunction.
A source in the General hospital Calabar who spoke under anonymity revealed that, “There are many casualties ranging from mild to high burn wounds, some have their body from head to toe burnt.”
CrossRiverWatch later gathered that the explosion was from a gas celinder but this information was not independently confirmed.