Moscow market bomb kills at least eight

MOSCOW - A bomb killed at least eight people and wounded about 40 at a Moscow market yesterday.

Prosecutors said it was most likely linked to organized crime, though terrorism could not be ruled out. The bomb may also have caused a nearby gas canister to explode, giving rise to earlier reports that a gas leak was to blame.

Moscow's chief prosecutor Yuri Syomin said the blast was caused by a homemade bomb of a force equivalent to up to 1.2 kg of TNT explosive.

"We are not excluding that it was a terrorist attack .... (but) most likely it was a business or criminal settling of scores that was behind the explosion," he told reporters at the market.

Eight people had been killed and 41 had been taken to hospital with wounds. The Emergencies Ministry said the dead included two children. Other officials put the number of dead at 10.

"I saw a little child lying all covered in blood and next to the child a Russian woman was lying motionless. Everything was covered in blood," said Artyk, 19, a trader at the market.

One woman walked out of the market with a blood-stained dressing on her face, said a Reuters reporter at the market in an eastern suburb.

Most of the market traders were from China and the Far East or from ex-Soviet republics in central Asia. The market is a bustling maze of stalls that sells everything from leather coats to electronic goods and fast food.

Footage broadcast by Russia's NTV television station showed a two-storey arcade with roof panels blown off and the floor strewn with clothes and plastic packaging.

Prosecutors opened a formal investigation for murder but not terrorism. It is common practice for Russian prosecutors to launch a terrorism investigation if there is a suspicion that this was involved.

Groups linked to an anti-Moscow insurgency in Russia's Chechnya region have in the past set off explosions and taken hostages in Moscow, claiming dozens of lives. But the last such attack was more than a year ago.

Russian criminal gangs sometimes use small explosive devices in their struggle for control of markets in Moscow.

The blast happened in the sprawling Cherkizovo market complex, near the Lokomotiv stadium which sometimes hosts international football matches.

- REUTERS