Monday, 3 April 2017

St Petersburg metro blast 'kills 10'

Second device deactivated after investigators look into all possible causes after explosion hits metro in Russian city.





At least 10 people are found dead and dozens wounded in a blast in the metro system of Saint Petersburg, Russia's second city, according to local authorities.
Ambulances and fire engines descended on the central Sennaya Ploshchad metro station after the explosion on Monday at 240pm (11:40 GMT). Russian media initially reported that there were two blasts, but officials later said that there was only one blast which happened in a train carriage between two stations on a busy line.
Another explosive device was later found at a different station in central St Petersburg and made safe, the country's National Anti-Terrorist Committee said.
"We don't know the exact number of those killed, but it is about 10 people," a spokesman for the Saint Petersburg governor, said.
He added that about 50 people were wounded, two of which were undergoing emergency surgery.
A huge hole was blasted in the side of a carriage with metal wreckage strewn across the platform. Passengers were seen hammering at the windows of one closed carriage.
"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, told the AFP news agency outside the station.
Social media users also posted photographs and video from the blast's scene showing people lying on the floor and a train with a mangled door nearby.



Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was in St Petersburg to attend an economic forum, said the government was considering all possible causes for the blasts.
"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.
The Moscow metro also said it was tightening security following the the blasts in St. Petersburg.
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