Moscow: An explosion ripped through the international arrivals hall at Moscow's busiest airport yesterday, killing 35 people and wounding about 130, officials said.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called it a terror attack.
The state RIA Novosti news agency, citing law enforcement sources, said the mid-afternoon explosion at Domodedovo Airport may have been caused by a suicide bomber.
Those at the airport said it was filled with thousands of people at the time and the terminal filled up quickly with smoke.
"From the preliminary information we have, it was a terror attack," Medvedev told officials in a televised briefing.
He ordered authorities to beef up security at Moscow's two other commercial airports and other transport facilities, including the subway system, the target of past terror attacks.
Loud bang
Although there have been repeated attacks on the Moscow subway and Russian trains — most blamed on Chechen militants — the bombing yesterday was the first involving a Russian airport since 2004.
Sergei Lavochkin, who was waiting in the arrivals hall for a friend to arrive from Cuba, said he saw emergency teams carrying bloodied people out of the terminal.
"I heard a loud bang, saw plastic panels falling down from the ceiling and heard people screaming. Then people started running away," Lavochkin said.
Mark Green, a British Airways passenger who had just arrived at the airport, told BBC television he heard the huge explosion as he left the terminal.
"Literally, it shook you," he said. "As we were putting the bags in the car a lot of alarms ... were going off and people started flowing out of the terminal, some of whom were covered in blood."
"One gentleman had a pair of jeans on that was ripped and his thigh from his groin to his knee was covered in blood," Green added.
Green said thousands of people were in the terminal at the time of the explosion.
Sofia Malyavina, a spokeswoman for the Social Development and Health Ministry, said 31 people were killed and about 130 were wounded. She said 56 ambulances were sent to treat the victims.
"The airport is filled with smoke," she said on Rossiya 24. Built in 1964, Domodedovo is located 42km southeast of the center of Moscow and is the largest of the three major airports that serve the Russian capital, serving over 22 million people last year.
Timeline: Acts of terrorism
Monday's suicide bombing at Moscow's Domodedovo airport was just the latest in a series of terrorist attacks in Russia over the past decade. The following is a list of some of the worst such acts of terrorism:
- March 29, 2010: Forty people are killed and dozens injured when two female suicide bombers from Dagestan blow themselves up during rush hour in two stations of Moscow's metro.
- August 21, 2006: A shrapnel bomb explodes at a market in Moscow, killing 10 people and injuring more than 50.
- September 1, 2004: Thirty-two gunmen attacj a school in Beslan and hold 1,100 children, parents and teachers hostage. In all 331 hostages are killed.
- August 24, 2004: Two passenger jetliners, with terrorists carrying explosive devices on board, crash in western Russia, killing 90.
- October 23, 2002: Chechen rebels take 800 people hostage in Moscow. Police storm the building and all the terrorists and 129 hostages are killed.
Do you know anyone who has been affected by the blasts? Were they at the airport when it happened? Tell us about it along with your contact details.
