There are conflicting reports of the number of explosions. At least one car was said to have exploded and several others caught fire.
“It was like a big thunder clap. I was just coming out of the shop. There was one explosion, then another small one, probably from gas,” Alexei Borodin, 29, told the Reuters news agency. “I saw five people who could not stand up. And there were other people who were in small bits. There was one man without a stomach shouting: ’Where are the police?’”
Interfax news agency quoted a source at the Interior Ministry as saying: “With a great deal of probability, we can state that what happened was a deliberate explosion caused by a female suicide bomber.”
The Interior Ministry is also investigating the possibility that the device was planted underneath a nearby car. The first eyewitness reports say a man drove up to the spot and asked people to stand aside so that he could park. Once people cleared the way for him, he parked his car, locked it and left. Five minutes later, the car exploded, First Channel reported.
The explosive device was apparently stuffed with nuts and bolts and seems to be similar to the device that went off at a Moscow bus stop last week a few hours before two planes crashed.
Ambulances were slow in arriving to the scene and some of the wounded were taken to hospitals in private cars by bystanders, NTV reports.
A MosNews source reports seeing approximately 20 ambulances and rescue vehicles on the scene, along with approximately 20 police cars.
Subway trains are bypassing the metro station, announcing it closed “for technical reasons,” a MosNews reporter said.
As with any other incident resembling a terrorist attack, the finger will almost certainly be pointed at Chechen separatists who have carried out similar attacks in Moscow before. A heightened security regime has been introduced across the capital.
01 СЕНТЯБРЯ 10:03
