A huge bomb ripped through a shopping mall in the Philippine capital's financial district Friday, killing eight people and injuring 89, police and rescue workers said.
MANILA: A huge bomb ripped through a shopping mall in the Philippine capital's financial district Friday, killing eight people and injuring 89, 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 and wounded at least 89 others. The identities of casualties were not disclosed and police would not say if there were foreigners among them.
Bomb debris carpeted a 200-square-metre (2,100-square-foot) area, Barias said.
Police ordnance experts declared the building free of any more explosives early evening, allowing them to shift their work to investigating the blast, he 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 said 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.
President Gloria Arroyo "is deeply saddened by this incident and extends her sympathies to the families of the casualties," her spokesman Ignacio Bunye said.
Arroyo had ordered the police "to get to the bottom of things and to leave no stone unturned," Bunye 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.
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