At least 10 people were killed and 50 injured when two powerful blasts tore through a metro train in the Russian city of St Petersburg on Monday, the media reported
Blast at St Petersburg. Pic/Twitter
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Moscow: At least 10 people were killed and 50 injured when two powerful blasts tore through a metro train in the Russian city of St Petersburg on Monday, the media reported.
RT Online quoted Transit Systems management as saying that evacuation of passengers was on after the explosions at the Sennaya Square station. TASS quoted emergency services as saying that 10 people had been killed.
The door of a train coach was blown off by the impact of the explosions. Russian President Vladimir Putin said law enforcement agencies were trying to determine the circumstances of the incident.
Police officers guard the area at the entrance to Technological Institute metro station in Saint Petersburg on April 3, 2017. Pic/AFP
"I have already spoken to the head of our special services, they are working to ascertain the cause (of the blasts)," Putin, at a meeting with Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, said. "The causes are not clear, it's too early. We will look at all possible causes, terrorism as well as common crime," he added.
Russia has been the target of attacks by Chechen militants in past years. Chechen rebel leaders have frequently threatened further attacks. At least 38 people were killed in 2010 when two female suicide bombers detonated bombs on packed Moscow metro trains.
St. Petersburg emergency services at first said that there had been two explosions. But a source in the emergency services later said that there had been only one but that the explosion had occurred in a tunnel between stations. The blast occurred at 2.40 p.m., well shy of the evening rush hour. Authorities closed all St. Petersburg metro stations. The Moscow metro said it was taking unspecified additional security measures in case of an attack there.
Russia has been on particular alert against Chechen rebels returning from Syria and wary of any attempts to resume attacks that dogged the country several years ago. At least 38 people were killed in 2010 when two female suicide bombers detonated bombs on packed Moscow metro trains. Over 330 people, half of them children, were killed in 2004 when police stormed a school in southern Russia after a hostage taking by Islamist militants.
Putin speaks
President Vladimir Putin said investigators were looking into all possible causes for the explosion -- "accidental, criminal and first of all ... terrorist."
A picture shows the damaged train carriage at Technological Institute metro station in Saint Petersburg on April 3, 2017. Around 10 people were feared dead and dozens injured Monday after an explosion rocked the metro system in Russia's second city Saint Petersburg, according to authorities, who were not ruling out a terror attack. Pic/AFP
Putin, who was holding a meeting near Saint Petersburg in his official Strelna presidential palace, offered "condolences" to those hurt in the blast.
EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini wrote on Twitter she was following the story "together with all EU foreign ministers" gathered for a meeting in Luxembourg. "Our thoughts are with all the people of Russia," she wrote.
While there was no immediate indication as to what caused the blast, Russia's security services have previously said they had foiled "terrorist attacks" on Moscow's public transport system.
And extremists have targeted Russia's public transportation systems in the past.
Pictures screened on national television showed the door of a train carriage blown out, as bloodied bodies lay strewn on a station platform.
Above ground, emergency services vehicles rushed to the scene at the Technological Institute metro station, a key transport hub in the city centre.
"For the time being, we can say with full confidence that nine people have died and over 20 people were injured, including some who were seriously injured," the spokesman for Russia's national anti-terrorism committee (NAK), Andrei Przhezdomsky, said in televised remarks.
Authorities in Saint Petersburg had previously given a death toll of "about 10 people."
The blast caused scenes of confusion, with traffic blocked on Moskovsky Prospect, a busy throughfare as emergency vehicles rushed to the station.
EYEWITNESS ACCOUNTS
"My mom was in the metro, I don't know what's happened to her, I can't get hold of her," one woman, Natalia, said outside the station as she was trying to make a phone call on her mobile.
Pensioner Vyacheslav Veselov told AFP he had seen four bodies at the Technological Institute station.
"A station attendant in tears called on the men to help carry the bodies," he said.
Przhezdomsky said the blast occurred at 2:40pm local time (1140 GMT) and that the NAK had already launched an investigation.
He said, "the blast happened in a train carriage between the stations Technological Institute and Sennaya (Square)," which are next to each other.
The committee later confirmed that security services had found a device at the Vosstaniya Square metro station which didn't explode and "neutralised" it.
The metro network announced it was shutting down entirely after evacuating all passengers and Russia's Investigative Committee also began a probe into the blast.
The Moscow metro tweeted that it was "taking additional security measures" as required by law in such situations.
NAK said in a statement carried by Russian news agencies that security was being stepped up at transportation hubs and crowded places across the country.
In 2002, 120 hostages were killed when police stormed a Moscow theatre to end another hostage taking. Putin, as prime minister, launched a 1999 campaign to crush a separatist government in the Muslim southern region of Chechnya, and as president continued a hard line in suppressing rebellion.
#Moscow: Explosion in St. Petersburg metro station. Casualties reported after an explosion on a train pic.twitter.com/k2ZJz6nCfX
— Doordarshan News (@DDNewsLive) April 3, 2017
.@IndEmbMoscow UPDATE: Separate blasts happened at two different metro stations. 8 metro stations shut down. No reports of any Indian injured.
— Doordarshan News (@DDNewsLive) April 3, 2017
Watch video
UPDATE: Several people feared dead in #SaintPetersburg metro #blast https://t.co/4CrRYXz0Sp pic.twitter.com/1khfM6cJXW
— RT (@RT_com) April 3, 2017
#WATCH Scene from the blast site at Tekhnologicheskiy Institut metro station in St Petersburg, Russia; 10 killed and 50 injured. pic.twitter.com/UazXjcVJKM
— ANI (@ANI_news) April 3, 2017
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