46 injured in Belarus café blast
Forty-six people were wounded, four of them seriously, in a bomb explosion outside a café in the Belarusian city of Vitebsk, the Emergency Situations Ministry said today.
Alexei Murzhankov, a duty officer at the Vitebsk city department of the ministry, said 25 of those injured in last night’s blast had been admitted to hospital, four of whom were in intensive care.
Murzhankov said the explosion occurred just outside the café.
A Vitebsk resident, Anton Stepanishchev, said the café was a temporary, partially open-air structure of the sort often set up to attract customers in the summer.
The explosive, stuffed with bits of metal, was buried in a flower-bed, Vitebsk regional police said.
The composition of the device, combined with the fact the café was crowded with customers, accounted for the large number of injured but apparently did minimal damage to the tent itself, which was shown intact on television.
Investigators did not discuss possible motives, but the location suggested a business dispute could not be ruled out.
