39 Injured, 11 Killed in Russia Terror Attack

Eleven people were killed in a blast on the St. Pe­tersburg metro Monday, the Russian health ministry said. Authorities say the explosion is a terrorist attack.
An explosion tore through a train as it was traveling between two stations in Russia’s second-biggest city, injuring dozens more.
A second device was found and defused at another sta­tion, Russia’s Anti-Terrorism Committee said. No group has claimed responsibility for the at­tack, which led to the shutdown of the city’s metro system.

President Vladimir Putin, who had been in St. Petersburg earlier in the day, said all causes were being investigated, includ­ing terrorism. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev de­scribed the explosion as a “ter­rorist act.”
The blast happened just af­ter 2:30pm (7:40 a.m. ET) as the train was traveling in a tun­nel from Sennaya Ploshchad to Tekhnologichesky Institut sta­tions in the city center. In the confusion, initial reports sug­gested there were two blasts.
Investigators are seizing items relative to the investiga­tion, questioning witnesses and metro employees and working to confirm the number of dead and injured, Russia’s Investiga­tive Committee said in a state­ment.
The train’s conductor pos­sibly saved lives, the commit­tee said, because rather than stop the train after the blast, he continued on to the next sta­tion, which allowed passengers to evacuate and rescuers to tend to victims.
Photographs show the fa­cade of one of the cars ripped off and passengers running from the Tekhnologichesky Institute station as it filled with smoke. Victims said they helped each other escape the train.
Bodies were seen strewn across a station platform out­side the train. Rescuers carried bandaged and bloodied victims out of the station.