Bomb on Russian Bus Kills Eight and Injures 56

Eight people were killed and 56 injured in Russia yesterday when a bomb exploded on a bus during rush hour.

There were no immediate claims of responsibility but prosecutors opened a terrorism investigation into the blast, which took place shortly after 8am in the city of Tolyatti, 500 miles east of Moscow in the Samara region.

The victims were thought to be mostly students. Three children were among the injured.

An attack by Chechen separatists could not be ruled out but is likely to be only one of several lines of inquiry. Tolyatti is home to the AvtoVAZ carmaker and has a reputation for violent turf wars linked to its sprawling factory, which makes the Russian Lada.

Police dismissed a theory that a gas canister had exploded on the bus, saying a bomb had most likely been attached to the underside of the vehicle or placed on the floor. It was also possible that a passenger was carrying the device, they said.

President Vladimir Putin ordered his representative in the region, Alexander Konovalov, to take "all possible measures" to help the injured.

Television pictures showed the green bus slewed across a busy street with part of its right side torn away and debris scattered around. A dead woman lay slumped in one seat. Windows in nearby buildings were blown out by the force of the explosion.

Police said they had found shards of the explosive device.

An operational headquarters led by the federal security service (FSB) was set up in the city to control the investigation.

"The main version is terrorism," Samara's governor, Vladimir Artyakov, told journalists after meeting police and security officials. The FSB rejected rumors from the local media that there had been a second explosion in the city.

Tolyatti, an industrial city of 700,000 people on the Volga river which was named after an Italian communist, is known for organized crime.

Since 1995 at least five journalists have been assassinated in the city, including two editors of the Tolyatti Review, which specializes in exposing corruption.