Video footage taken at Oktjabyska subway station in
Minsk, Belarus shows ambulances on the scene shortly
after an explosion occurred on April 11.
Eleven people were killed and 70 injured in a subway station blast in Belarus’s capital, Minsk, on Monday.
The explosion occurred during rush hour at the Oktjabyska station, which is about 100 yards from Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko’s residence.
This is the first such incident of its kind in the country, and officials say the cause of the blast is still unclear.
It is not known whether the blast occurred on the train platform, or on an escalator near the platform. The explosion caused mayhem in the station, with people rushing to exit the area; some engulfed in flames, according to a Radio Free Europe reporter.
In July 2008, a bomb blast at a concert attended by Lukashenko injured about 50 people in Minsk. No arrests in the case were reported.
Another deadly incident took place in the capital in May 1999, after thousands of people had attended a beer festival. After the event, heavy rains forced people to take cover under an underground walkway of a subway station, resulting in a stampede that left about 50 dead and 300 injured.
