An explosion in the main metro station in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, which occurred Monday afternoon when maximum influx of passengers has killed 12 people and wounded more than a hundred, according to data released last night by President Alexander Lukashenko. The prosecution of Belarus, for its part, has referred to 126 injured, 22 of them seriously. The Belarusian authorities favored the hypothesis of terrorism, though the details of incident are still unclear.
About six in the evening in Minsk (one hour less in Madrid), there was an explosion at the station platform Oktiabrskaya when there were two trains, according to one version of what happened. According to other testimony, the escalator out of people charged would have collapsed, either by the shockwave of the blast, either by the falling weight or who flocked to it. A woman who had just left underground when the accident occurred said the blasts had been two and one of them could have affected the running up the escalator. Images recorded on mobile phones show people bleeding and others trying to help them.
Shortly after the explosion, Lukashenko laid down the subway and a bouquet of flowers. The president said the explosion could have been caused. "I do not exclude that we could bring this gift from outside, but we must also look here [in Belarus]," said the president in an emergency meeting with officials of the regime. In it, Lukashenko called on Defense Minister Yuri Zhadovin, to check all the magazines and explosives depots to ensure that everything "is in place and everything is kept in its proper place."
His words raised fears in the opposition media in Minsk yesterday that the incident may now serve to justify a new wave of repression of the regime, whose relations with the West have deteriorated since the election on Dec. 19.
Belarus is experiencing a time of international tensions with the West since Lukashenko claimed victory in presidential elections. At the conclusion of the election day after police violently broke up a protest and imprisoned most of the candidates who defied the president in those elections. Two of them are still incarcerated as well as several opposition activists.
last December repression and political regression that followed ended the hopes fostered by the European Union in a gradual democratization of the authoritarian Lukashenko regime directed since 1994. Belarus
lives a volatile economic situation, characterized by continuous price increases, recurrence of currency black market, due to the difficulties of changing the currency BYR Western-official bodies and irregular supply of products.
Oktiabrskaya station has several exits, one of them on Independence Avenue, next to Republic Square, which has been the scene of demonstrations by the opposition to protest after successive electoral vote in favor of Lukashenko. Besides being near the presidential administration and other official buildings, the station is the busiest Oktiabrskaya Minsk by linking to another subway line.
The Prime Minister of Russia, Vladimir Putin expressed his condolences and said that the Russians knew from experience what is terrorism and offered help in the investigation.
Source: El País ( www.elpais.es )
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