Bomb blast shakes southern Russian city
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Russia is on high alert after a bomb blast last night outside a concert hall in the southern city of Stavropol left seven people dead and dozens injured.
The bomb went off outside a cultural centre just before a performance by a famous Chechen dance troop. The authorities in Stavropol, which lies on the edge of the troubled North Caucasus region, say that 33 people are still in hospital, 16 of whom are in a critial condition.
“There was a big loud explosion,” one eyewitness told the Russia Today TV news channel. “I ran away to the nearby square. There were people in shock and covered in blood.” Another eyewitness said that if the blast came only a few minutes later, when the concert had started, the death toll would have been far higher.
Investigators said yesterday’s bomb - filled with small metal pellets and the equivalent of 400 grams of TNT - was detonated by remote control.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but media reports are speculating that it is linked to Islamic militants fighting in the nearby North Caucasus republics. In March two suicide bombers from Dagestan killed 40 people in coordinated attacks on the Moscow metro.
