One dead in Canada coffee-shop explosion

TORONTO - One person was killed when a device exploded in a downtown Toronto coffee shop today, and police said they had no clues on who the victim was or what exactly caused the blast.


Staff Sergeant Don Cole said the blast took place just after 1pm EDT (5am NZT) in the washroom of a Tim Hortons shop, a coffee and doughnut chain that was recently spun off from parent company Wendy's International Inc.


One man was killed.


"It appears there was a device, but we don't know whether the person brought it in with him, or it he was an innocent party, or if he was a suicide, we just don't know," he said.


"It's not something that just blew up by itself, it was some device."


Cole said he had no information about the man who died. Fire department spokesman Daryl Fuglerud told media at the scene that the man who died had burns to his body, although the explosion had not caused much smoke.


"It doesn't appear that there was much of a fire at all," Fuglerud said.


Police closed off a busy block close to one of Toronto's main shopping districts as they investigated the cause of the explosion and used a remote controlled device to trigger a second device after finding a suspicious package.


"It was just garbage," Cole said.


Police also evacuated a second Tim Hortons further away from Toronto's downtown core after a suspicious package was reported, but Cole said the second evacuation seemed to be merely a precaution. "It will probably turn out to be nothing - just garbage," he said.


- REUTERS