Mystery blast kills 8 in Russia

An explosion tore through an outdoor market in the Russian city of Samara at lunchtime Friday, killing at least eight people and wounding at least 37.

The blast was initially reported as an accident caused by exploding gas or oxygen cylinders, but within hours the authorities said they had found evidence of a bomb.

Aleksandr Kromin, spokesman for the region's prosecutor, said that more than 2 pounds of explosive had been used and that explosives experts had turned up pieces of the bomb's fuse.

It was not immediately clear who had placed the bomb or what might have been the motive for the blast.

A representative of the Ministry of Emergency Situations said that Samara, a city of about 1.2-million near the border with the central Asian republic of Kazakstan, had not had a history of terrorism related to Russia's ongoing war in Chechnya, and Kromin said the prosecutor's office had not ruled out the possibility that the bombing resulted from a dispute between criminal gangs.

Timofei Zakharchenko, a spokesman for the Emergency Situations Ministry in Samara, 500 miles southeast of Moscow, said eight people were confirmed dead and 37 were injured. Several of the injured were said to be wounded critically; the death toll seemed likely to rise. The RBK news agency reported that among the dead were two teenage boys.

Televised images of the bomb site showed destroyed retail stalls and mangled aluminum roofing material strewn along the ground.

The authorities said that although the blast hit the market, the bomb had been placed next to railroad tracks and had detonated near a crowded platform.

Not long before the explosion, a freight train had pulled into the station, between the platform and the market, and the rail cars shielded the people on the platform from much of the shrapnel and blast, according to the NTV television network.

World and national headlines

© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times 490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 Contact the Times | Privacy Policy Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright