Deadly blast rocks St Petersburg
ABOUT 10 people were killed and several more injured yesterday after an explosion rocked the metro system in Russia’s second city Saint Petersburg, according to authorities, who were not ruling out a possible terror attack.
President Vladimir Putin said investigators were looking into all possible causes for the explosion – “accidental, criminal and first of all . . . terrorist”.
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 antiterrorism 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.
“My mum 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 call on her mobile.
Pensioner Vyacheslav Veselov said 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 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 also tweeted that it was “taking additional security measures” as required by law in such situations.
NAK said in a statement carried by news agencies that security was being stepped up at transportation hubs and crowd- ed places across the country.
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.
Russia beefed up its security over the holiday period in the wake of the attack on the Berlin Christmas market that killed 12.
Russia has intervened militarily to bolster Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in September 2015, turning the tables on the battlefield just as rebel forces were strengthening their hold on key areas.
Russian strikes helped the regime retake rebel areas in the east of the northern city of Aleppo after four years of fighting. Over 310,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict broke out in March 2011 with protests against Assad’s rule.