LAGOS, Jan 27: A street market fire spread to an army ammunition dump in Lagos on Sunday, sparking a series of heavy explosions that rocked the city and sent residents fleeing their homes in panic, military sources said.

A senior military officer told Reuters he expected many casualties as the ammunition dump was near an army barracks and a large residential area. “The fire broke out at a street market for soldiers and spread to the ammunition dump,” he said.

Heavy explosions reverberated for about an hour in Lagos, Africa’s biggest city of over 10 million people.

“There is panic in the streets. People are scrambling to get on any available vehicle. The streets are packed with desperate people,” a resident of Ikeja district said by mobile phone.

The city’s main military barracks and the biggest army ammunition dump in the south of the country are located in Ikeja, which is close to Nigeria’s main airport and the country’s biggest industrial district.

Panic-stricken Ikeja residents fled their homes and families rushed to take their relatives from nearby hospitals. “I can see three patients being wheeled out of the Ikeja General Hospital on their beds. One has his drip on,” said an eyewitness.

“Thick smoke is billowing from the barracks and flames are shooting into the sky. I can see the flames from where I stand,” one witness said from the domestic airport terminal some six km (three miles) away.

There was no immediate official army comment.

The explosions come at a time of great political tension and warnings by prominent Nigerians that continuing bickering and intrigues among the political elite could lead to a military coup.

PRESIDENT SAFE: The series of blasts which erupted in central Lagos on Sunday were an accident and not the result of a military coup, Lagos State Governor Bola Tinubu said.