Local authorities are blaming a "homemade explosive" for a blast that injured at least 10 people in a supermarket in the Russian city of St. Petersburg, news agencies are reporting.
Investigative Committee spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko said that "a homemade explosive device with the power equivalent to 200 grams of TNT filled with lethal fragments went off" in the busy shopping area at about 6:30 p.m. on December 27.
Officials did not comment on whether terrorism was suspected. Petrenko said the authorities were "looking into every theory of the incident," but that for now, the case was being classified as "attempted murder."
Officials said nine of the 10 injured in the blast, located in the Perekrestok supermarket's storage room, had been sent to the hospital for treatment.
Dozens of people were evacuated from the building.
Footage posted on social media shows multiple police vehicles, ambulances, and fire engines outside the Gigant Hall leisure center, where the supermarket is located on the ground floor.
"There was a bang. Emergency personnel are already on the scene. The evacuation has been completed, and there was no fire," a local Emergency Situations Ministry official told the TASS news agency.
The blast comes after Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) on December 15 said it had arrested seven suspected Islamic extremists and thwarted plans for bomb attacks in St. Petersburg on December 16.
