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St Petersburg metro explosion: 14 dead and 49 injured – UPDATE+VIDEO

Fourteen people were killed and 49 were injured after an explosion tore through a train carriage in the St.Petersburg metro system on Monday. The bomb was filled with shrapnel. Another bomb was found and made self.

Russian president Vladimir Putin said the cause of the blasts was not clear and that he was considering all possibilities, including terrorism.

UPDATE: Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said it is “cynical and vile” for media to call the St Petersburg bombing revenge for actions in Syria.

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UPDATE: The Eiffel Tower will go dark in solidarity with St Petersburg metro explosion victims, announced Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo. The mayor said the lights on the famous monument will be switched off at midnight in Paris, when it will be 1 a.m. Wednesday in St. Petersburg.

Meanwhile, authorities in Berlin decided not to illuminate the Brandenburg Gate in the colors of the Russian flag following the deadly subway bombing.  A senate speaker from the German press agency said the landmark would not radiate the Russian national colors because St. Petersburg is not a partner city of Berlin, and “exceptions should only be made in exceptional cases, ” according to Berliner-Zeitung.

No European landmark was decorated with Russia’s national colors Monday evening. Israel, however, did express its condolences and solidarity with the victims of the attack by lighting up city hall in Tel Aviv with the colours of the Russian flag.

UPDATE: The Investigative Committee said in a statement that they believe Akbardzhon Dzhalilov set off a bomb on a train that killed 14 people and wounded dozens. It was unclear if the figure of 14 included the bomber.

The investigators also said that forensic experts found Dzhalilov’s DNA on a bag containing a bomb that was found and deactivated at another subway station in St. Petersburg on Monday.

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UPDATE: Investigators released the name of the suspect of the St Petersburg metro attack. The Russian Investigative Committee has identified 22-year-old Akbarzhon Dzhalilov, a Kyrgyz-born Russian citizen, as the suspect believed to have carried out the terrorist bombing.

“From the genetic evidence and the surveillance cameras there is reason to believe that the person behind the terrorist act in the train carriage, was the same one who left a bag with an explosive device at the Ploshchad Vosstaniya station,” the statement added.

UPDATE: Turkish President Recep Tayip Erdogan had a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin to convey his condolences over the bombing in the St. Petersburg Metro.

“I would like to say that Turkey stands with Russia in face of this treacherous terrorist attack. Our country, which has been combatting terrorism for years, perfectly understands Russia’s grief,” Erdogan said, as cited by Anadolu news agency.

UPDATE: The foreign ministry of the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan says a Kazakh citizen was among the 14 killed in the blast on the St. Petersburg subway.

UPDATE: German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande have discussed with Russian President Vladimir Putin ways to boost anti-terrorism cooperation in the aftermath of the St. Petersburg subway bombing, the Kremlin said.

The Kremlin said Merkel, Hollande and Putin “stressed the need to intensify cooperation in order to counter terrorism which is a common threat for all nations” and agreed to improve intelligence sharing.

UPDATE: St Petersburg’s Sennaya Ploshchad metro station has reopened after being shut for several hours following an anonymous bomb warning, Russian agency RIA Novosti said. The station was closed by metro authorities after an anonymous phone call earlier in the day. 

UPDATE: Russian investigators say they believe a suicide bomber was behind a deadly attack on the subway in Russia’s second-largest city.

UPDATE: Emergency officials have closed four St Petersburg subway stations following a new bomb threat. St Petersburg’s Sennaya Ploshchad metro station has been closed after an anonymous phone call warned of another possible attack, Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported.

Another agency Interfax said its reporter had seen several fire engines outside the station.

UPDATE: Russia’s state investigative committee said that the deadly St Petersburg metro blast was caused by a bomb that had possibly been detonated by a man whose body parts were found in one of the train carriages.

“It has been ascertained that an explosive device could have been detonated by a man, fragments of whose body were found in the third carriage of the train,” the committee, which has sweeping powers, said in a statement.

“The man has been identified but his identity will not be disclosed for now in the interests of the investigation,” the statement added.

“Investigative Committee experts, working alongside FSB and the Interior Ministry rapid response teams, have established that the explosive device could have been set off by a male suspect whose fragmented remains have been found inside the third car,” Svetlana Petrenko, the committee’s spokeswoman, told Interfax.

The official stressed that, while his identity is known, details will not be disclosed at this time “given the ongoing investigation.”

UPDATE: The deadly bomb blast in St Petersburg shows the need for joint efforts against global terrorism, Russian agency RIA Novosti quoted foreign minister Sergei Lavrov.

“(This tragedy in St Petersburg) once again shows the importance of stepping up joint efforts to combat this evil,” Lavrov said at a meeting with his Kyrgyz counterpart Erlan Abdyldayev.

UDPATE: The death toll from the bomb blast in St Petersburg has risen to 14, Russian agency Ria Novosti quoted the country’s health minister Veronika Skvortsova. The blast which happened on a metro train has also injured almost 50 people. The death toll had stood at 11 people on Monday,

UPDATE: Forty-nine people were injured in the explosion between two underground stations on Monday afternoon, according to a BBC report. 

UPDATE: The man suspected of killing 11 people by bombing a St Petersburg train is a native of Kyrgyzstan who obtained Russian citizenship, the Central Asian country’s security service says. 

A spokesman for the GKNB security service identified the suspect as Akbarzhon Jalilov, born in the city of Osh in 995, according to Reuters. Interfax news agency said authorities believed the 23-year-old suspect was linked to radical Islamist groups.

Kyrgyzstan, a predominantly Muslim Central Asian nation of six million, is Russia’s close political ally and hosts a Russian military airbase.

UPDATE: 11 people were killed and 45 hospitalized after the St. Petersburg metro explosion, the Information Center of the National Anti-Terrorist Committee (NAK) has told TASS.

UPDATE: President Vladimir Putin laid flowers at St. Petersburg’s Tekhnologichesky Institut metro station.

UPDATE: A source told Interfax that authorities had established the identity of the suspected suicide bomber and that the suspect was a 23-year-old from central Asia who had carried an explosive device into the St Petersburg metro in a rucksack.

A man who was captured on surveillance cameras and earlier suspected of a role in the blastcame forward to police and said that he played no role, Interfax reported.

UPDATE: A suspected suicide bomber thought to be responsible for a deadly blast in the St Petersburg metro on Monday had links with radical Islamist groups banned in Russia, a law enforcement source told Interfax news agency.

The source added that remains found at the scene of the blast suggested that a suicide bomber was responsible but that final conclusions would be made after DNA tests had been conducted.

Private television station Ren TV broadcast grainy pictures, it said were captured by a camera on board a metro train of a middle-aged man with a beard, a long black coat and black hat. Closed-circuit footage from a few minutes later showed him outside the station hit by the blast, looking at his telephone.

UPDATE:  U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday called the explosion in a St. Petersburg metro tunnel a “terrible thing.”

UPDATE: Russia’s Transport Ministry  has ordered regional departments to ramp up anti-terrorism security.

UPDATE: Over 1,200 people were evacuated after a blast rocked a metro train in St. Petersburg and rescue teams and emergency services are examining the underground of the city, the Russian Emergencies Ministry. 

UPDATE: France’s Interior Ministry is reinforcing security measures on public transport in the Paris region after the deadly bomb in St Petersburg, according to Reuters.

UPDATE: Investigators say that the train’s driver helped to prevent more victims by not stopping the train during the explosion.

“The data obtained during the initial investigative actions indicate that the train driver, in whose car the explosion occurred, was acting competently in the situation. The explosion occurred on a section between the stations, but the driver took the absolutely correct decision not to stop the train, having reached the station, which made it possible to immediately start evacuation and assistance to the victims,” Russian Investigative Committee spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko said, according to Sputnik.

UPDATE: St.Petersburg authorities declared a three-day mourning in the city after the terror attack, according to an order issued by the city’s governor, Sergey Poltavchenko.

UPDATE: “It is a terrible terrorist attack, whose organizers and perpetrators must be identified and severely punished,” said Chechen Leader Kadyrov on Instagram. l

Из Петербурга поступают тревожные вести – девять человек погибли, более двадцати ранены в результате взрыва в метро. Это чудовищный теракт, организаторы и исполнители которого должны быть установлены и понести самое суровое наказание. Преступники, посягающиеся на жизнь ни в чем неповинных людей, не заслуживают пощады и жалости, отношение к ним должно быть не просто жёстким, а жестоким. Увещеваниями убедить этих нелюдей невозможно. Террористы стремятся подчинить своей воле весь мир, посеять страх, хаос, неуверенность в завтрашнем дне. Ответом должна стать сплочённость народа против общего врага. В этот тяжёлый для руководства и жителей Петербурга день я заявляю, что мы скорбим вместе с вами, мы готовы встать рядом с вами, если это потребуется. Я выражаю соболезнования губернатору Санкт-Петербурга Георгию Полтавченко, родным и близким погибших, желаю скорейшего выздоровления пострадавшим. #Кадыров #Россия #Чечня #Петербург

A post shared by Ramzan Kadyrov (@kadyrov_95) on

UPDATE: At least 10 people were killed and 37 others injured in the blast, according to Russian Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova. “The number of victims stands at 47 at this point. Seven were killed at the site, one died while being transported to a hospital, and 39 were hospitalized. Two of the hospitalized later died from blast injuries,” Skvortsova told reporters.

Six of the hoapitalized victims arein grave condition, says Skvortsova, according to Sputnik.

UPDATE: Surveillance cameras in St Petersburg’s metro system may have captured images of the person suspected of organising Monday’s deadly train blast, Russian news agency Interfax quoted a source as saying.

“Images of the suspected organiser of the metro blast were captured on metro station cameras,” the source said.

UPDATE: An explosive device was left in a briefcase in the metro carriage, according to sources cited by Interfax.

UPDATE: Russian security agencies found an explosive device at a metro station in central St Petersburg and made it safe, the National Anti-Terrorist Committee said in a statement on Monday.

The device was found at the “Ploshchad Vosstaniya” metro station, a different location from where a blast earlier took place.

UPDATE: Private transport companies offer free transport services to St. Petersburg after the explosion that took place at the metro, a spokesman for the city’s transport committee stated for TASS.

UPDATE: A homemade explosive device has been defused at the Ploschad Vosstaniya metro station in Saint Petersburg, according to Sputnik News.

UPDATE:  At least nine people were killed and 20 were injured when an explosion tore through a train carriage in the St.Petersburg metro system, the Russian National Anti-Terrorist Committee said. Previously, the local authorities announced 10 people were killed and 50 were injured.

UPDATE: UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson expressed his sympathies to the victims of the St Petersburg underground blast and their families.

UPDATE: The Russian prosecutor general has called the St Petersburg explosion a terrorist attack, according to the Telegraph.

UPDATE:  At least 22 people were hospitalized following a blast, the press secretary of St. Petersburg’s governor said.

“A total of 41 medical emergency response teams are working at the site of the incident. At least 22 people were sent to local hospitals,” Andrei Kibitov wrote on Twitter.

UPDATE: Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev expressed condolences to victims of a blast in St. Petersburg metro. Medvedev has also ordered the heads of the Emergency Committee (EMERCOM) and Health Ministry to provide all necessary help to the victims of the explosion.

“Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev expressed condolences to the families of victims of the St. Petersburg metro blast,” the press service said in a statement.

UPDATE:  There was only one blast in St Peterburg’s metro system which happened in a train in between two stations, a source in Russia’s emergency services confirmed.

“There was one blast in one site in between (stations) as the train arrived at the Technology Institute station from Sennaya (Ploshchad) station,” the source told Reuters.

Russian media reported earlier that there were two blasts.

 

UPDATE: Syria has condemned the blasts in Saint Petersburg and expressed sympathy to the people and authorities of Russia.

UPDATE: St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo Airport has increased security measures, an airport spokesperson said, as cited by Russian media.

UPDATE: An unexploded device has been found at Ploshchad Vosstaniya Metro station in St. Petersburg, Fontanka newspaper reported on Facebook, adding that the device is currently being deactivated.

UPDATE: The Moscow metro said it was taking unspecified additional security measures in case of an attack there. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin ordered to strengthen security at the Moscow subway and at local railway stations following a blast in St. Petersburg metro earlier in the day.

UPDATE: The explosive device was 200-300 grams of TNT equivalent, a law enforcement agency source told Interfax.

UPDATE: Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin was in St. Petersburg speaking at an event earlier Monday but that he was at the moment of the incident in the nearby city of Strelna.

UPDATE:  Fifty people have been injured by the blasts in St Petersburg’s metro system, Andrey Kibitov, the head of the city governor’s press service said on Twitter.

Seventeen ambulances are currently treating the injured, Kibitov added.

UPDATE: The evacuation operation in the St. Petersburg Metro has almost been completed, according to the National Anti-Terrorism Committee.

UPDATE: The National Anti-Terrorism Committee said that the explosion took place between Tekhnologichesky Institut and Sennaya Square metro stations, adding that there have been casualties. Officers from Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), the state security organization in Russia that came after KGB and does counter-intelligence, counter-terrorism and surveillance, are currently investigating the place of the incident, alongside police. 

All subway stations in St. Petersburg have been closed, Metro officials said.

UPDATE: An Interfax report cited by Reuters claims there are 50 injured people in the explosion.

The Russian news agency cites sources from the Governor’s Press Office.

UPDATE: President Putin said the cause of the blasts was not clear and efforts were underway to find out. He said he was considering all possibilities including terrorism, according to Reuters.

“I have already spoken to the head of our special services, they are working to ascertain the cause (of the blasts),” Putin, at a meeting with Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, said.

“The causes are not clear, it’s too early. We will look at all possible causes, terrorism as well as common crime,” he added.

“The city authorities, and, if required, the federal authorities, will take all necessary measures to support the families of those killed and those injured,” Putin added.

UPDATE: St Petersburg prosecutors office has launched probe in relation to blast in the city’s metro occurred.

UPDATE: Russian President Vladimir Putin has expressed condolences to the families of the victims after  Russia’s emergency services confirmed ten people have been killed and at least 20 were injured in the explosions that hit St Petersburg’s metro system.

UPDATE:  Rescue workers and law enforcement personnel are working at the scene and the evacuation of the passengers is under  way at the subway stations. “Park Pobedy, Elektrosila, Moskovskiye Vorota, Frunzenskaya, Tekhnologichesky Institut, Sennaya Ploshchad and Gostiny Dvor metro stations have been closed,” the metro’s press service reports.

The Moscow Metro is taking extra security measures after the blast, a Metro official told Interfax.

UPDATE: There were blasts in two metro carriages at two different metro stations, according to the St. Petersburg Emergency Agency.

Eight ambulances are present at the place of the incident,near the Sennaya Ploshchad metro station, according a Reuters witness. 

UPDATE: At lest one of the explosive devices contained destructive agents, according to a report from Sputnik. 

UPDATE: Among the injured people there also children, according to report from Sputnik News.

A aw enforcement source told Sputnik. “There are children among the victims who were most likely on spring break. However, their number and names are unknown at the moment.”

UPDATE: Russian President Vladimir Putin is attending an official meeting in Sank Petersburg with President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko.

UPDATE: At least ten people  dead and 20 were injured according to Tass News Agency.

At least seven stations of the metro have been reportedly closed for passengers, according to a source cited by TASS.

The St. Petersburg metro has five lines and 67 stations,  transports 2.3 million people a day and has more than 1,600 train cars. St Petersburg’s metro system is the 19th busiest in the world, with more than two million passengers every day and tt has not suffered attacks before.

Russia has been the target of attacks by Chechen militants in past years. Chechen rebel leaders have frequently threatened further attacks.

At least 38 people were killed in 2010 when two female suicide bombers detonated bombs on packed Moscow metro trains.

Over 330 people, half of them children, were killed in 2004 when police stormed a school in southern Russia after a hostage taking by Islamist militants. In 2002, 120 hostages were killed when police stormed a Moscow theatre to end another hostage taking.

Russian airforce and special forces have been backing President Bashar al-Assad in fighting rebel groups and Islamic State fighters now being driven out of their Syrian strongholds.

Vladimir Putin, as prime minister, launched a 1999 campaign to crush a separatist government in the Muslim southern region of Chechnya, and as president continued a hard line in suppressing rebellion. The Russia president was born in St Petersburg and was an assistant to the rector of Leningrad State University in charge of international relations before his political career began.

Terrorist attacks in Russia

6 February 2004, Moscow: 41 people were killed by a suicide bomber on the Zamoskvoretskaya Metro Line in Moscow.

1 – 3 September 2004, Beslan: 330 people were killed, including 186 children. A gunmen took 1,100 people hostage in a three-day siege at a school in Beslan.

29 March 2010, Moscow: 41 people were killed and over 100 were injured in a bombing at the Moscow Metro.

24 January 2011, Moscow: 37 people were killed and hundreds were injured when a suicide bomber detonated an explosive belt at the Domodedovo International Airport, Moscow’s busiest international airport.

19 August 2016, Balashika: Police officers were attacked at a checkpoint on the motorway in Balashika by Isil supporters carrying guns and axes.

Alexa Stewart

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