The death toll from a Nigerian armoury explosion topped 1,000 today as a police mutiny that has compounded the woes of Africa's most populous nation ran out of steam.
Underscoring Nigeria's fragility, ethnic rioting erupted today in a notoriously volatile suburb of Lagos.
Searching continued for a sixth day in grimy canals to find those killed in a stampede to escape from blasts last Sunday which also made thousands homeless and sent military tempers soaring in a key barracks of the coup-prone country.
Officials said the search for bodies in the swamp was almost complete and that over 1,000 people had been registered as dead.
Two bodies were today pulled from the mess of weed, where they had drowned or been trampled to death.
In Lagos the private Star FM radio said fighting broke out today between Yorubas from President Olusegun Obasanjo's southwest and Hausas from northern Nigeria after a man was killed for urinating too close to another's home.
But police officials said they could not confirm any death. They said there had been fighting and some houses were burnt.
Nigeria is struggling with its worst cycle of violence in 30 years and preparations are beginning for 2003 general elections in a country torn by ethnic and political rivalries.