A BLAST rocked the international arrivals hall of Russia’s largest airport, Domodedovo, yesterday, killing 35 people and injuring more than 150.
The emergencies ministry said more than 50 of the injured were brought to hospital last night, 35 of whom were in a serious condition.
Speaking after the attack, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev expressed his condolences to the relatives of those killed in the suspected suicide attack. “We have to do everything to ensure that the injured get medical help urgently,” he said.
A spokesperson from the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs said they had no indication that any Irish nationals had been caught up in the attack. Two British citizens were confirmed dead last night.
International flights continued to land after the blast, although a British Airways flight en route from London was redirected.
Mr Medvedev ordered tighter security across the capital’s transport hubs in the wake of the blast and police were on duty checking documents in the city’s metro stations early in the evening. The president has postponed his departure to the Davos World Economic Forum which had been scheduled for Monday evening.
Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin headed to Domodedovo along with the governor of the Moscow region.
Local news sources reported that the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber in the crowded arrivals hall, access to which does not require security checks.
Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported the blast was equivalent to 5kg of TNT. Suspicion has fallen on migrants from Russia’s volatile North Caucasus region.
Mr Medvedev ordered an investigation into the blast, to be led by chairman of the investigative committee of the prosecutor general’s office Alexander Bastrykhin.
Mr Bastrykhin was injured in a secondary explosion during an investigation into the 2009 Nevsky Express train bombing, in which 28 people were killed. Twelve natives of Ingushetia in Russia’s North Caucasus were found guilty of the attack.
Russian news website lenta.ru reported that Russian security services had received intelligence about a planned terrorist attack prior to yesterday’s explosion, but had been directed to the wrong location.
The attack is not the first to involve Domodedovo airport, which serves the bulk of the capital’s international flights. In 2004 suicide bombers boarded two aircraft at the airport, detonated explosives after take-off and killed 90 people.
Yesterday’s bomb was the worst terrorist attack in the capital since blasts on the Moscow metro on March 29th, 2010. The explosions, which hit two of the city’s busiest stations in spring last year, killed 40.
A spokesman for Aer Rianta International, a subsidiary of Dublin Airport Authority, which runs several duty free shops at Domodedovo, said its staff had been confirmed as safe. Aer Rianta employs two expatriate and 300 local staff at the airport.