31 Killed, 170 Wounded in Moscow Airport Blast

Photo- Daily Mail (UK)

An explosion at Moscow's Domodedovo Airport sent screws, ball bearings and shrapnel tearing through a crowd of travellers and airport personnel on Monday afternoon. One eyewitness said he saw a man with a suitcase that appeared to be engulfed in flames a moment before the blast tore through the international arrivals terminal. before the blast.

Artyom Zhilenkov, a 35-year-old driver, told The Associated Press he was just a few yards away from the explosion and saw a man who may have been the bomber.

"I saw the suitcase, the suitcase was on fire. So, either the man blew up something, or something went off on the man's body, or the suitcase went off." said Zhilenkov, whose clothes were soaked in blood.

"The guy standing next to me was torn to pieces," he added.

Russian officials put the death toll at 31 and said nearly 170 people were injured in the explosion Monday afternoon, while an airport spokesman reported 35 dead and about 46 wounded.

"From the preliminary information we have it was a terror attack," President Dmitry Medvedev told officials.

Russia's Interfax news agency reported that a head found at the site appears to belong to the bomber.

"We found the head of a man of Arab appearance, aged 30-35. It seems he detonated the explosive device," said the source.

Amateur video posted on YouTube showed the international arrivals terminal at Domodedovo Airport engulfed by smoke and splattered with body parts after the mid-afternoon terror attack sprayed shrapnel, screws and ball bearings at passengers and workers. Hundreds of people were in the loosely guarded area at the time.

The Daily Mail website is reporting that at least two British nationals were killed in the blast- a British Airways flight had arrived shortly before the blast. This is reportedly the first attack targeting Russian airline travellers since 2004, when two suicide bombers were able to sneak explosives on board a domestic flight departing Domodedovo airport and detonate while mid-air.

Domodedovo is Moscow's largest and busiest airport with flights from 77 airlines arriving and departing on a daily basis. Although it's early, Russian authorities suspect Chechen Islamic separatists are involved in the attack.