Eight killed in bombing at Philippines mall
MANILA (AFP) — A huge bomb ripped through a shopping mall in the Philippine capital's financial district Friday, killing eight people and injuring 99, police and rescue workers said.
Panicked shoppers ran out of the Glorietta mall in the Makati district of Manila as smoke billowed out of the building shortly after noon.
Manila police chief Geary Barias said the blast killed eight people, all Filipinos, and wounded at least 99 others, including two South Koreans and a Chinese citizen. Twenty-one of the wounded have been sent home from hospital.
Bomb debris carpeted a 200-square-metre (2,100-square-foot) area, Barias said.
Police experts declared the building free of any more explosives early evening, allowing them to shift their work to investigating the blast, he told reporters.
National police chief Avelino Razon said: "This was a bomb. But beyond that we can't say anything else yet because we are still investigating."
Makati City councillor JunJun Binay said the explosion left an eight-metre (26-foot) wide crater on the ground floor and blew a hole through the roof on the second floor.
"From what I have seen it was a significant explosion and that most of the dead and injured were all employees," he said.
Witnesses said part of a ceiling collapsed while a concrete wall was blown out.
Two cars and two delivery vans were buried under wooden planks and concrete debris outside the mall.
"It was so powerful," clothing store clerk Jeric Balendes told AFP as rescuers treated his cuts and bruises.
"The roof just collapsed on us. I could hear my three co-workers screaming. I got out through a small hole. I don't know if they got out."
Police stepped up security across Manila, a sprawling city of 12 million people.
"I am deeply saddened by this unfortunate incident and I extend my sincerest sympathies to the families of those were killed and wounded," President Gloria Arroyo said in a statement on national television.
The military and police are "on highest alert and are fielding an additional 2,000 personnel to secure our public places and to prevent a possible similar occurrence," she said.
"I warn those who seek to exploit this incident to destabilise our government for their selfish political motives," she added.
The United States and Australia both offered technical help in investigating the blast.
Bomb squad teams sifted through the debris looking for clues, while extra police were drafted in to divert traffic and seal off the surrounding area -- one of the busiest shopping districts in Manila.
The bodies of three of the dead lay covered in blankets on the floor of the adjacent car park, being used as an emergency medical centre.
"There was a sudden explosion," said Christine Calope, one of the injured. "I don't know if it was inside or outside the mall."
Witnesses said the blast occurred in a section of the mall with clusters of shops selling baby clothes and toys.
Barias said police had not received any threats about an attack.
Police did not immediately name likely suspects for the attack, but Islamic militants were blamed for a bomb on a bus near the Glorietta mall that killed four people on Valentine's Day in February 2005.
Militants also firebombed a ferry in Manila Bay the previous year, killing more than 100 people in the country's worst terrorist attack.
Arroyo's National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales has previously said the government was not ruling out future attacks on "soft" targets such as shopping malls.
