Two people were killed and 17 injured after an explosion aboard a bus in Voronezh, in western Russia, local authorities said on Friday (August 13th), who favor the accidental track.
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A woman, seriously injured, died shortly after the explosion, according to the governor of the region Alexander Goussev. A second succumbed to her injuries after being hospitalized, he later said in a Telegram statement. Among the injured, several are in serious condition, especially due to burns, according to the same source.
The bus driver told the Rossiïa-24 public channel that 35 people were on board at the time of the tragedy. The explosion occurred Thursday evening as the vehicle was at a bus stop near a shopping center. The explosion blew the roof and the windows according to several videos of passers-by circulating on social networks and taken up by Russian media. "
The explosion was very strong, then everyone started to run to flee
", told a witness, Larissa, to the public news agency RIA Novosti, adding that "the
whole road was strewn with glass broken
”.
The Russian Investigative Committee announced that it had sent experts from Moscow to establish the circumstances of the tragedy. An investigation for "
inappropriate service provision
" resulting in "
serious harm to people's health
" has been opened, the committee said in a statement. "
So far, nothing indicates that it could have been a terrorist attack
", assured for his part the vice-governor of the region, Sergei Sokolov, to the Interfax agency.