Bomb Suspected as Blast Kills at Least 9 at Russian Market

[Gregz]

Bomb Suspected as Blast Kills at Least 9 at Russian Market

By C.J. CHIVERS

Published: June 4, 2004


MOSCOW, June 4 — An explosion tore through an outdoor market in the southern Russian city of Samara at lunchtime today, killing at least nine people and wounding at least 32 more.

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 P. Kromin, spokesman for the region's prosecutor, said in a telephone interview that more than two 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 behind the blast.

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

Nine people were killed in the blast, Mr. Kromin said, although some news agencies reported that 11 had died. 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 teenaged boys.

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

The authorities noted that although the bomb detonated in the market, it had been placed in an area next to railroad tracks and had detonated near a platform crowded with people.

Not long before the explosion, however, 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.

[Rain]

Deaths on highway

CHECHNYA. (Russian-Chechen Friendship Society’s Information Centre).
Several people died and one was injured in collisions involving several
cars, caused by the Russian servicemen on Rostov-Baku highway and a road
outside Grozny on 31 May.

According to eye-witnesses, servicemen of the federal armed forces under
the influence of alcohol drove their KamAz lorry on to the opposite side
of the carriageway where it collided with an oncoming Lada. Two Lada
passengers died on the spot, the third was seriously injured and taken
to the nearest hospital. The servicemen were unharmed.

On the road leading from Novye Atagi village to Grozny, Russian
Servicemen’s armoured personnel carrier collided with an oncoming VAZ on
the other side of the carriageway. A woman and three of her children
16-year-old daughter and two sons aged 22 and 25, were inside. According
the eyewitness Marzhan Goudaeva, they all died on the spot. The armoured
personnel carrier left the scene of the accident.

Translated by Olga Sharp
PRIMA-News Agency [2004-06-02-Chech-06]

[Gregz]

Rain

A bomb at a crowded open-air market in southern Russia killed nine people and wounded more than 30 on Friday. Initial reports from the Volga River city of Samara said oxygen canisters had exploded in the market.

Experts later concluded the blast was caused by a bomb made of one kilogram of plastic explosives.

It was attached to a market stall by the side of a railway and detonated by a fuse. Chechen rebels have conducted a bombing campaign across Russia but investigators said it was too early to say who was responsible.

Gregz



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