Man sets off homemade bombs near a check-in counter; security check level upgraded after incident
(From agencies)
Five people were injured when a man set off home-made explosives at Terminal 2 of Shanghai Pudong International Airport and attempted to commit suicide, police said.
The incident happened at C check-in counter at 2:20pm Sunday when suspected homemade “explosive material” exploded, the Shanghai Airport Authorities said on its Weibo account.
The condition of the man, who suffered a cut in the neck vein, is serious. Four others injured in the blasts were rushed to hospital and the area was cordoned off by police.
The four suffered only minor injuries on head, hand, leg and buttock.
Flights were not affected by the incident, the airport authority added. They have now upgraded the security check level at the airport. According to the new procedure, all passengers will be inspected at the entrances into the terminal buildings.
Witnesses told Shanghai Daily (Watch the video clip) that an object, which looked like a cracker, exploded on the hand of a male traveler as he was lining up before the check-in counter. He himself was seen lying on the ground, injured, after the explosion.
A report on Sina.com said two luggage items had exploded in five seconds of each other. The luggage were then thrown 15 meters apart, the report said.
It quoted a passenger identified only by her surname Xue as saying that she heard a man yelling “No!” and “ah!” shortly before the blast as she was checking in for her flight to Thailand.
Passengers scrambled to run to safety as the explosion occurred, she said. A video posted on Sina.com (Watch the video clip) shows a plume of smoke rising from the airport counters.
Pudong Airport, which opened in 1999, is a major international aviation hub in China. It has two main terminals and serves some 60 million passengers a year.