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Grenade blast injures 27 in Austrian disco©Associated PressJuly 28, 2002 LINZ, Austria -- A hand grenade blast sprayed tiny metal pellets and shrapnel through a discotheque filled with young Balkan immigrants Saturday, injuring 27 people, two seriously, police said. The explosion ripped through the X-Large Disco in Linz, about 120 miles west of Vienna, at 3:20 a.m., leaving patrons -- most age 15 to 19 -- with steel balls embedded in their skin and bodies, a doctor said. Experts said the grenade -- which was packed with thousands of .12-inch steel balls -- was designed to injure, not kill. Grenades like it are readily available on the black market in Eastern Europe and the Balkans, they said. "There was a flash in the DJ area on the dance floor, followed by a terrible explosion," said police spokesman Michael Tischlinger, citing witnesses accounts. The force of the blast sent spotlights crashing to the floor, Tischlinger said. About 40 people were inside the disco at the time, among them an unidentified male in his late teens, who told state television: "There was blood everywhere." The wounded were taken to nearby hospitals for treatment of minor shrapnel wounds, and all but two were released, Tischlinger said. Two of the victims will have to undergo surgery, including one with an injured kidney, but neither appeared to have suffered life-threatening wounds, the doctor told Austrian radio. Police would not say whether they thought the grenade exploded after someone intentionally pulled the pin or whether the blast was an accident. The Federal Criminal Bureau, Austria's equivalent of the FBI, was sending explosives experts to the scene. Authorities said the disco and a small adjoining restaurant were popular with young Serbian and Croatian immigrants. The disco is located in a former factory hall on the city's western edge, in a run-down district populated almost entirely by people from the former Yugoslavia. Police said they had been called to the club several months ago to investigate reports that youths were fighting with swords there. They did not elaborate.
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