Friday, October 11, 2002 Posted: 6:23 PM EDT (2223 GMT)

"An injured woman is helped toward a waiting ambulance following an explosion in a shopping mall in suburban Helsinki, Finland.



HELSINKI, Finland (CNN) -- An explosion rocked a shopping center in suburban Helsinki Friday, killing six people and injuring dozens more, including at least 10 seriously, police said. The cause of the blast was not immediately known.

The blast occurred on the first floor of the popular Myyrmanni shopping center near a stairwell around 7:30 p.m., sending debris flying and causing part of the roof to collapse. A small fire also erupted but it was quickly extinguished.

"There was a terrible explosion. My ears were completely blocked up," bystander Orvokki Neuvonen told The Associated Press. "Glass fell down from the third floor and the children and parents were in total panic when they saw the injured people."

Dozens of emergency and police vehicles responded to the scene, and at least one helicopter was there to airlift victims out. Authorities said about 80 people were injured, including at least 10 seriously.

The shopping center, which is open until 9 p.m., was shut down, sealed off and evacuated immediately after the explosion.

Authorities were investigating the cause of the blast. They said it was too early to tell whether the explosion was the result of a bomb or gas leak. One representative of the shopping center said he didn't think it could be a gas explosion because of the vicinity of the blast.

"We are talking to lots of people, and we are not ruling out anything at the moment," deputy chief inspector Seppo Kujala told the AP.

The shopping center, which has about 130 stores, is located in Vantaa, a densely populated suburb about seven miles (12 km) north of downtown Helsinki. Businesses, apartment houses and a rail station are nearby, local journalist Mika Makelainen told CNN."

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This happened about a kilometer from my house and it's pretty horrible.. I hope that no one I know got killed.. During the blast there were 1000-2000 people inside and apparently one of the dead is a small child..

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Update

* 7 people got killed (3 women, 3 men, 1 girl), over 80 got injured and over 60 of them are still in the hospital..

* The explosion was caused by a bomb and the suspect is an under 20 year old Finnish man who was the seventh who got killed.. He was a student who lived in Helsinki.

* The bomb had some sort of shotgun ammos in it, in order to cause as much damage as possible.. It happened during or just after a small show for children, so a large group of the injured and dead were young people.

Two of the dead were my brother's pal's - Miikka's friends and the child who died, was a 7-year old girl from my old elementary school. She was in the first grade.


This is very tragic for everyone and I am really sorry for all the people who lost anyone..


I know that this accident doesn't seem like anything, but I never would've imagined that there would be a bomb explosion in Finland.. Near my residence especially.. They say that it's the worst civilian accident after the war..

VBt
[This message was edited Sat Oct 12 8:03:21 PDT 2002 by 2coolMelody]

I hope that you don't think that the lack of responses to this thread means that people don't care. It's just that I would imagine no-one knows what to say about such a tragedy.
My heart goes out to everyone involved.

2cool please be safe. I will keep you in my prayers, as well as the families of those that lost someone in the explosion. What a terrible tragedy.

Thank you for the kind words..