1.45pm update

Moscow metro blast kills 39

Putin blames Chechen rebel leader
A woman with blood on her face stands outside Avtozavodskaya metro station in Moscow
A woman with blood on her face stands outside Avtozavodskaya metro station in Moscow. Photograph: APTN/AP
Around 39 people were killed and at least 120 injured in a suspected suicide attack on the Moscow underground during the morning rush hour today.

The blast hit the second carriage of a packed tube train at 8.30am local time (0530 GMT) as it travelled between Avtozavodskaya and Paveletskaya stations on the city's crowded circle line.

The Interfax news agency, citing unnamed police sources, said that officers had videotape of the suspected female attacker and her alleged accomplice standing on the platform before boarding the train.

However, Moscow's deputy mayor, Valery Shantsev, said that investigators had not found metal shrapnel - which usually fills suicide bombers' explosives - in the wreckage of the train carriage.

He said it was most likely that the bomb had been in a briefcase or rucksack on the carriage floor.

Suspicion is likely to fall on Chechen separatists, who have been blamed for a series of bombings.

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, today accused the Chechen rebel leader, Aslan Maskhadov, of being behind the explosion, Interfax reported.

"We do not need any indirect confirmation. We know for certain that Maskhadov and his bandits are linked to this terrorism," Mr Putin said.

Television footage showed a badly mangled and charred train carriage at the site of the explosion.

Inside, bodies remained in their seats, covered in soot. Corpses covered in blood, their clothing torn, lay on the tracks.

Smoke filled the tunnel immediatiely after the explosion as rescue workers, carrying empty stretchers, rushed down the stairs at Avtozavodskaya to evacuate the injured. Most of those hurt were suffering from concussion and smoke inhalation.

Survivors said that the blast had blown out carriage windows and started a fire.

"I heard a loud sound like a petard, and smoke filled the car," Ilya Blokhin, 31, a doctor who was in the train's next to last carriage, told the Associated Press.

"Now that there are explosions on the metro, what are our country and government and police going to do when they blow up crowded subway cars?"

"It's scary to live here," said Galina Abramova, a passenger on a train that was coming in the opposite direction when the explosion occurred. "I wasn't that close to the train, but I feel scared anyway. Now at noon, my legs are still weak."

A police spokesman, Kirill Mazurin, said that the train had travelled 500 metres after the explosion before coming to a stop.

An unidentified woman, blood covering her face, told NTV television that, for a long time after the explosion, passengers had been unable to open the door of the carriage, which was badly damaged in the blast.

After finally prying open the door, she said they had walked two to three kilometres out of the tunnel.

Today's incident took place just six weeks before a presidential election on March 14. Mr Putin is widely expected to easily win a second Kremlin term.

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