Video instructions about making explosive materials and bombs are easily accessible on the internet, including on the popular video-sharing website YouTube, a chemistry professor says.
His comments came after a 13-year-old injured his face, an eye and two fingers yesterday when setting off an explosion at home using ingredients bought locally and instructions found online. He and two other teenagers were arrested by police after the incident.
Last month, a 17-year-old teenager lost the fingers of his left hand in an explosion that occurred while he was making a grenade at home.
The trio arrested yesterday were suspected of making triacetone triperoxide (TATP), an explosive powder used by terrorists, for fun.
The bomb used by the so-called shoe bomber, Richard Reid, who tried to bring down American Airlines Flight 63 with explosives concealed in his shoe in 2001, included TATP. The powder was also used as an explosive in the July 7, 2005, London bombings.
Fung Ying-sing, associate professor of the chemistry department in the University of Hong Kong, said these videos only mentioned how to make explosives, without detailing required safety measures or saying how dangerous such activities were.
'It is difficult to control online information about making explosives, and it is really dangerous to make them without guidelines. One can set off an explosion with just a few grams of TATP,' Professor Fung said.