The TVGE channel broadcast footage of wrecked and burning buildings, people -- including children -- being pulled from the rubble and the wounded lying on a hospital floor.

It showed images of a thick column of black smoke, which TVGE said was coming from the Nkoa Ntoma military camp in the economic capital Bata.

The first explosion happened early on Sunday afternoon, the channel reported.

"We hear the explosion and we see the smoke, but we don't know what's going on," one local resident, Teodoro Nguema, told AFP by telephone.

It is not yet known what caused the blasts, but early reports suggested they might have come from the camp's armoury, according to a journalist with the channel.

The camp houses among others elements of the army's special forces and the paramilitary gendarmerie, said the journalist.

Equatorial Guinea has been ruled by 78-year-old President Teodoro Obiang Nguema for nearly 42 years.

His son, Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, vice-president with responsibility for defence and security, appeared in the television footage at the scene inspecting the damage, accompanied by his Israeli bodyguards.

Teodorin, as he is known, is increasingly seen as the president's designated successor.

Bata is the largest city in the oil- and gas-rich nation, with around 800,000 of the nation's 1.4 million population living there -- most of them in poverty.

While it sits on the mainland, the capital Malabo is on Bioko, one of the country's islands off the west African coast.