RUSSIA: MOSCOW: APARTMENT BLOCK EXPLOSION AFTERMATH

(13 Sep 1999) Russian/Nat

President Boris Yeltsin has ordered boosted security in key cities, at atomic plants and oil depots after a suspected bomb demolished an apartment building in Moscow.

At least 34 people were killed in the blast - scores of others remain missing.

It was the second major explosion in the Russian capital in four days.

Police have appealed for help in finding a man they believe could be linked to Monday's explosion and last week's blast, which also ripped through an apartment building.

Monday's explosion levelled an eight-storey building in a residential area of southern Moscow.

About 150 people lived in the building, although there were no reports on how many people were home at the time of the blast.

It was hoped that many residents were away for the weekend at country cottages.

More than 300 rescue workers with scores of ambulances and fire engines were quickly at the scene of the blast.

The voices of survivors were heard initially in the rubble and rescue workers with sniffer dogs were trying to find them.

Stunned local residents, many in their nightclothes, stood on the street staring at the wreckage.

Smoke enveloped the remains of the building and firefighters extinguished flames in the rubble.

The blast sprayed the surrounding area with jagged glass and rubble for hundreds of metres (yards).

A school and two kindergartens were located less than 200 metres (yards) from the shattered building.

The blast came just four days after an explosion shattered another apartment building in the Russian capital, leaving 93 people dead.

The blasts were about six kilometres (four miles) apart.

Police are treating the latest explosion as a suspected bombing.

Caches of explosives were later found in three adjacent buildings and police evacuated onlookers from the scene.

News reports suggested two large boxes of commercial explosives, of a kind linked to last week's explosion, were found in the basement of one building.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, attending the APEC summit in New Zealand, said
Monday's explosion was a terrorist attack.

Police have now been ordered to increase security in Moscow.

SOUNDBITE: (Russian)
"There was a thundering and you could hear things start to fall off the building. I went out onto the balcony but couldn't see anything for the dust. I looked and saw the windows on fire but thankfully not ours and then I saw the building opposite and then the blast."
SUPER CAPTION: Eyewitness

SOUNDBITE: (Russian)
"There was an explosion. I was just back from work so I wasn't asleep then all the windows of the block blew in. I was very scared. we live in the corner of the block facing the one which collapsed. People were running out onto the street undressed and without their things. You just can't describe it
SUPER CAPTION: Eyewitness

SOUNDBITE: (Russian)
"Those who have done this don't deserve to be called animals. They are worse. They are mad dogs. They should be treated as such."
SUPER CAPTION: Vladimir Putin, Russian Prime Minister

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