China: Explosion at Bank Kills 2

Explosion at Bank Kills 2

A explosion shook a branch of the China Construction Bank late Thursday afternoon in Wuhan, a provincial capital in south-central China, a municipal police official there said, and state media reported that at least two people were killed and more than 10 were injured.

Postings on the Twitter-like Weibo microblog, from people identifying themselves as being in Wuhan, said that someone put two or three bags of what looked like cement near the bank’s entrance, along with a “work in progress” sign. The bags turned out to be full of explosives and detonated when an armored car full of cash showed up.

The armored car was not punctured and kept going, the postings said.

The cause of the blast is under investigation, said a man answering the phone at the Wuhan municipal police press office, who declined to provide his name.

Explosives are sometimes used in commercial and domestic disputes as well as in crimes in China, partly as an alternative to guns, which are extremely hard to obtain. Natural gas leaks sometimes cause explosions as well, but these have more often been reported at restaurants than banks.

Src  :  The New York Times