(COMTEX) B: Moscow Attack Creates Gruesome Scene ( AP Online )
MOSCOW, Aug 31, 2004 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- A blast-blackened car, chunks of debris strewn across the pavement, a mutilated body beneath a black covering.
Those were the gruesome remains of what Moscow's mayor called Russia's latest terrorist attack, a blast that sent body parts flying and left injured victims struggling for their lives.
"There was a very powerful bang," said Alexei Borodin, 29, who said he was walking with his mother when the explosion ripped through an open area between a subway entrance and a department store.
Officials said at least 10 people were killed and more than 50 injured in the attack, which was blamed on a female suicide bomber.
An hour after the blast, which Mayor Yuri Luzhkov said occurred at 8:07 p.m. local time, one badly damaged body lay beneath black plastic as the sound of sirens faded and traffic shuffled along on the major avenue just yards away.
"There was a powerful blast and then a smaller one. I thought my roof would come off," said Sergei Pyslaru, 30, who said he was driving on a nearby street.
Luzhkov said some of seven victims who died at the scene had apparently been able to move before they succumbed to their injuries.
The subway station, at the corner of a bustling intersection northeast of central Moscow, is also the site of an ornate, pre-Revolutionary railway station and a massive covered market.
Emergency workers bustled, milled or simply sat in trucks as darkness deepened Tuesday night. A unit of tired-looking teenage Interior Ministry troops in heavy helmets helped keep order. Police repeatedly widened the tape lines to keep onlookers - mostly journalists - at a distance.
Luzhkov said the blast was caused by a suicide bomber carrying "a very large volume of explosives packed with various bolts and other metal objects."
He suggested that Moscow's subway system could have been the intended target. An explosion that authorities blamed on terrorism ripped through a subway car in the capital in February, killing 41 people.
"I thought the metro had blown up," Pyslaru said of the explosion.
He called his wife to tell her to take a taxi home from work instead of the subway, even though she only has to travel one stop. "People are frightened," he said.
The blast came even as Russia remained on edge a week after two planes crashed almost simultaneously after on-board explosions. Authorities suspect those crashes were caused by a terrorist attack.
Russian authorities say security has been stepped up after every deadly attack that hits Moscow, but Pyslaru dismissed any added measures as "small change" that cannot turn aside terrorists.
"It's all nonsense," he said. "Everybody knows that."
By STEVE GUTTERMAN
Associated Press Writer
Copyright 2004 Associated Press, All rights reserved
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