Explosion at Shanghai airport injures four – suspect slashes his own throat
Man threw beer bottle containing home-made explosives at check-in area
A man hurled a bottle containing home-made explosives inside Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport on Sunday afternoon, injuring four people before attempting to kill himself, authorities said.
The man threw the beer bottle containing the explosives towards a check-in counter in Terminal 2 at about 2.20pm, the Shanghai Municipal Public Security Bureau said.
The man then took a knife from his backpack, cut his neck and fell to the ground, police said.
He is in a critical condition in hospital.
Four passengers were injured in the incident, said a statement on the Shanghai government’s official microblog.
Three injured in Shanghai airport terminal explosion
The state-run Xinhua news agency said the injured included a man from the Philippines, as well as a 67-year-old man and a 64-year-old woman – both described as Chinese. The nationality of the fourth victim was unclear.
The four were slightly injured by shards of glass and were being treated at Pudong District People’s Hospital.
Police sent armed officers to patrol inside the terminal following the blast as the airport raised its security level.
Some people said the explosion sounded like a firecracker.
“Before the explosion, I heard some people repeatedly say ‘please don’t’,” a witness surnamed Xue told the Xinmin Evening News. She said she heard a loud bang and saw smoke rising.
Yao Mengting said on WeChat that she had been near to the explosion and fell over twice as she tried to run away.
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“Everyone was running. It was so scary!” she wrote. “I saw someone was seriously hurt in the explosion.”
The blasts took place at check-in area C where the Thai Airways and Philippine Airlines service desks are located.
A worker at Thai Airways’ Shanghai office told the South China Morning Post that one of the airline’s flights was postponed and passengers were told to check-in at area E instead. “We are waiting for the arrangement from the airport over whether our passengers and their bags need another security check,” she said.
A few flights were affected because the incident disrupted the check-in area but the airport later returned to normal operation, Xinhua said.
Additional reporting by Reuters, Agence France-Presse
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