A bomb ripped through a Moscow bus during morning rush hour Friday, the second such attack in two days. Twenty-seven people were injured, eight of them seriously, police said.
President Boris Yeltsin and Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov blamed terrorists and promised tough measures. Police closed all main roads in and out of the city and blanketed its subway system and bus stations.Bus No. 48 was headed for the city center when the bomb exploded at 8:20 a.m. near the Rizhsky Bridge in northeastern Moscow, about 3 miles from the Kremlin.
The front of the bus was demolished, and blood and broken glass littered the street and sidewalks. Police spokesman Alexander Cherednikov said 27 people were injured. An earlier police report that a passenger was killed was incorrect, he said.
One witness said she heard the blast from her apartment and ran out onto her balcony.
"I saw people being pulled out of the trolley bus. One woman had her arm blown off and I think she died," said Lyudmila Ivanova.
Another witness, who identified herself only as Yelena, said there was panic after the explosion.
"Passengers began breaking windows to get out, people were shouting and hitting on the doors. The doors opened, then closed again for some reason," she said.
Police said Friday's bomb was the same as one that exploded on a bus in central Moscow on Thursday morning, but stronger. Both were hidden in cloth bags.
Luzhkov told a news conference Friday's bomb contained the equivalent of about 11 or 12 ounces of TNT, compared with 7 ounces of TNT in Thursday's bomb.
Friday's attack was the third on Moscow's public transportation system since a blast in the subway killed four people on June 11, five days before the first round of voting in Russia's presidential election.
The two bus attacks came after Yeltsin and his new national security chief, Alexander Lebed, agreed Wednesday on a plan to crack down on crime in the capital.
No one claimed responsibility for any of the bombs.
Yeltsin told a meeting of the Federal Security Service Friday that Moscow "is littered with terrorists, and we must take tough measures together with the mayor," the Interfax news agency quoted him as saying. Yeltsin said he signed an anti-terrorism decree this morning, but gave no details.