An explosion tore a key Metro station in the Belarusian capital of Minsk during the evening rush hour Monday, killing 11 people and injuring 126. An official said that the explosion was an act of terrorism.
President Alexander Lukashenko did not say what caused the explosion at the Oktyabrska?a Metro station, but the suggested external forces might be behind it.
The authoritarian leader, under strong pressure from the West on the Suppression of the opposition, has frequently alleged external forces seeking to destabilize his regime.
Deputy Attorney-General Andrei Leninskiy said the explosion was an act of terrorism, but gave no further details.
An Associated Press reporter on the scene has given heavily injured transported out of the station of Metro Oktyabrska?a, including a person with missing legs.
Several witnesses said Associated Press that the explosion struck just as passengers were stepping a train at 6 p.m., local time. The Oktyabrska?a station, crossing the two lines of Minsk metro, was packed with passengers at the end of the day's work.
The station is 100 metres from the residence of the President and the Palace of the Republic, a concert hall, often used for ceremonies of the Government.
Lukashenko has visited the site about two hours after the explosion and left without comment. Later, he ordered that the country feared police "call in all the forces and turn everything inside-out" to investigate the explosion.
About five hours after the explosion, Health Minister Vasily Zharko said 11 people were killed and 126 people were injured, including 22 of them severely.
A witness, Alexei Kiklevich, said at least a part of the ceiling of the station collapsed after the explosion.
Igor Tumash, 52, said that he was getting off a train when "there was a big flash, an explosion and thick smoke." I fell on my knees and crawled... bodies were piled on each other.
He said he saw a man with a cut leg and rushed to help him.
"But then I saw that he was dead," said Tumash.
Belarus, President Alexander Lukashenko, centre, is seen during a visit in February to the military unit of the army of Belarus in Minsk. Nikolai Petrov/Associated PressPolitical tensions have increased in Belarus since December, when a massive demonstration against a presidential election contested caused severe repression by the police in which more than 700 people were arrested, including seven presidential candidates.
Lukashenko, who was declared winner crushing election December 19 disputed, has run Belarus, a former Soviet Republic, with a strong hand since 1994. It controls crushing on policy, industry and media in this nation of 10 million, bordering the Russia, the Ukraine, the Poland and the Baltic countries.
Opposition to the Bay of Belarus is largely peaceful years, with only a few clashes with the police.
In July 2008, the explosion of a bomb at a concert attended by Lukashenka injured about 50 people in Minsk. No arrests in the case have been reported.
But Lukashenko said Monday that the explosion of Metro were connected to this attack.
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