



A bomb explosion injured 57 patrons of a fast-food restaurant Saturday in this Johannesburg suburb, the latest in a stepped-up series of attacks aimed at white civilians, police said.

The bomb hit a Wimpy`s hamburger restaurant at the Benoni Plaza shopping center two minutes before noon on the busiest shopping day of the week. Benoni is a white, Afrikaans-speaking suburb about 20 miles east of Johannesburg.

Seven of the wounded were reported in critical condition, a police spokesman said. He said he could not confirm an earlier report that one victim died.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the government blamed the outlawed African National Congress, which is waging a guerrilla campaign against white rule in South Africa.

Russell Bomfret, 18, who was 100 feet from the restaurant, said, ''I just saw glass and people flying out. People had been shopping and went into the hamburger bar for a quick snack.''

In addition to the restaurant, adjacent shops were badly damaged, with windows shattered throughout the two-story plaza. The plaza was packed with shoppers, most of them white, witnesses said. However, some of those injured were black, they added.

Elsewhere, police reported that a passerby was slightly hurt by shrapnel when a limpet mine destroyed a bus shelter in Germiston, another Johannesburg suburb. Authorities also said they had disarmed a bomb in a movie theater in Pretoria.

Many whites had for months feared an attack as devastating as the shopping center incident, when the stepped-up bombing campaign began. Some white parents, for instance, no longer will take their children shopping on Saturdays.

It was the most serious such incident since July 2, when a car bomb exploded as rugby fans were leaving a stadium, killing two bystanders and injuring 26 others.

The incidents followed a spate of non-fatal explosions and bomb scares related to the screening Friday of ''Cry Freedom,'' a film about the slaying of Black Consciousness leader Steve Biko. Police later confiscated the film, saying it was a threat to public safety.

There have been more than 30 bombings this year, including one in a Johannesburg video game arcade June 22 that injured 10 people, and almost 100 since the government declared a nationwide state of emergency in June, 1986. The African National Congress seldom confirms or denies involvement in specific attacks, but recent statements by some of the organization`s leaders have suggested that it approves of attacks on civilian targets.

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