Russian President Boris Yeltsin yesterday announced the implementation of urgent security measures across the nation after a second presumed terrorist attack in Moscow in five days left at least 50 people dead.
Hours after a huge blast devastated an apartment block in the Russian capital, Yeltsin said extensive measures would be taken to protect nuclear power plants, refineries and other potential targets.
Huge search operations were also to be carried out in Moscow.
PHOTO: AP
"On a day of mourning for the victims of attacks, criminals have thrown down a new challenge, terrorists are trying to scare the people of Russia and demoralize the country's authorities," Yeltsin said at a televised emergency meeting of ministers and city heads.
Describing the perpetrators of terrorist acts as "wild animals that act at night, killing people as they sleep," Yeltsin said the authorities' response would be constitutional and legal.
Response was also swift in the US, where Defense Secretary William Cohen offered US help to fight the wave of attacks as he denounced the bombing as a "cowardly and callous act of terrorism,"
"We are prepared to work with you and to share whatever information we can, to share whatever abilities we have, in this effort to wage an effective fight against terrorism," Cohen said after a one-hour meeting with Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev.
"This is wholly unacceptable and there can be no justification for any group taking action against innocent civilians. We intend to cooperate in whatever fashion we can to work with the Russian people," he said.
Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov said later he believed the explosions were "savage revenge" by "Chechen terrorists" for defeats suffered in current fighting between Russian troops and Islamic extremists in the republic of Dagestan, the Interfax news agency reported.
Luzhkov said "tough and radical measures" would be taken to prevent further terrorist acts, but said this did not mean the introduction of a state of emergency.
Just four days after a bomb killed more than 90 people at a Moscow apartment building, the latest explosion ripped through a complex of flats in the city early yesterday morning, killing at least 50 people.
Hundreds of rescue workers continued to search through what remained of the eight-story building in the south of the city where 126 residents were registered.
Yesterday had been declared a national day of mourning for the victims of the attack last week, a bombing nine days earlier in the southern city of Buinaksk that killed 94, and an attack on a Moscow shopping center in August that left one dead and over 30 injured.
Although it was not possible immediately to establish the exact nature of the latest blast, investigators said it appeared to be a new attack by terrorists following the same pattern of packing basement premises with explosives and detonating them by remote control.
"Even without any secure evidence yet, it looks like professionals were at work here," Interfax quoted an official of the intelligence service as saying.
Quantities of unknown materials found in neighboring buildings after the blast were initially believed to be explosives but later proved to be construction materials, reports said.
Television reports also showed police evacuating hundreds of residents of nearby houses after officers discovered more suspicious materials in a school. No more bombs or explosives were subsequently reported found.
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