Domodedovo Airport attacked by a suicide bomber

On January 24, at approximately 16:30, a blast ripped through the international arrivals zone of Domodedovo airport.

As of 19:50 there were 35 confirmed fatalities, and dozens of wounded. Initial media reports had placed the explosion in the baggage reclaim area. A suicide bomber is thought to have been responsible for the attack. A law enforcement source told RIA Novosti that the bomb blast had an explosive force equivalent to about 5 kg of TNT, and that the suicide bomber had been wearing the device. The bomb itself contained metal fragments. The airport's press service said (at 18:20) that the explosion took place in the international arrivals zone, which members of the public can access freely. About 20 ambulances and two emergency divisions of the Ministry of Emergencies were dispatched to the site in the immediate aftermath of the blast. A source in the Emergencies Ministry told Interfax that a further 10 ambulences were on standby, adding that all Moscow hospitals were ready to receive those injured in the blast. Hospital spaces were made available for everyone who was injured in the attack depending on the nature and gravity of their injuries. The wounded were mainly hospitalized in Moscow hospitals numbers 7, 12, 13 and 64, as well as in the Emergency Center in the Sklifovsky Research Center.

Olga P, a young Muscovite, was in the airport at the time of the explosion. She told Agentura.Ru what she saw:

My flight landed at Domodedovo in the evening of January 24, it was the Brussels-Moscow flight. A plane from Andijan landed at almost the same time. There was a crowd of people by passport control on the ground floor, so my friend and I ended up behind the passengers flying in from Andijan. I'd already been through passport control, when, at about 16:30 an almighty bang rang out, a thudding sound, really powerful – it made the walls shake. Then I heard people crying out but the other passengers didn't panic. Then I entered the baggage reclaim area. An opaque smoke was already beginning to fill the room, it smelt of burning plastic. There was smoke everywhere, but the conveyer belt was working normally and we could get our bags. Airport staff were already radioing each other – talking about a terrorist attack. They ushered us through the emergency exit on the first floor via the departures zone, through a really narrow passage. It was so narrow people could barely get down the stairs. Then I saw airport workers moving bodies, and the wounded, on baggage trolleys at the other end of the airport, where the air-express train ticket office, and presumably a first aid center was located. Other passengers who were closer to the blast when it went off said that the explosion ripped through the balcony on the first floor, by passport control. They said part of the wall along the corridors leading from passport control to the public area of the airport, where people were waiting to greet travelers, had been destroyed, and that elsewhere the wall was covered in blood.

Olga said the first ambulance arrived at the airport a little over half an hour after the explosion. A little later she saw how people were caught in the crush by the exits as they all tried to leave.

25.01.2011