by Yana Dlugy
MOSCOW, Aug 31 (AFP) - At least 10 people were killed and 51 others injured Tuesday when a female suicide bomber blew herself up outside a busy Moscow subway station, officials said.
The explosion caused scenes of carnage outside the station in central Moscow and came just a week after 90 people were killed in twin plane crashes over Russia that have been blamed on Chechen extremists.
After first saying it was a car bomb, officials said that it had been carried out by a female suicide bomber spotted before the blast and who was among the dead. Her body was more severely damaged than the other victims.
According to witnesses quoted by police, the woman was walking towards the subway but saw that police were checking the papers of passers-by. She withdrew for a moment and the explosion occurred immediately afterwards.
Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov, visiting the scene, said that the suspect had used one kilo (2.2 pounds) of explosives, while police said that the bomb contained between 300-400 grammes of TNT or the equivalent and was filled with metal fragments.
Other officials also confirmed Luzhkov`s assertion that the blast had been unleashed by a "female suicide bomber".
"With a great deal of probability it can be said we are talking about a premeditated explosion carried out by a terrorist female suicide bomber," said a spokesman for the Russian interior ministry.
Moscow prosecutor Anatoly Zuyev announced that an investigation for terrorism had been opened. A spokesman for the security service said that 10 people were killed and 51 injured in the blast.
A special Moscow municipal holiday scheduled for the weekend would go ahead but with extra security measures in place, while special patrols were being sent out to train stations and airports.
The attacks frightened people in the Russian capital already on edge over possible attacks from separatists in Chechnya, who have vowed to carry their five-year fight into Russian cities.
"I was walking out of a nearby store when the blast went off and the first thing I saw were torn up bodies," said Alexei Borodin, 29.
"Some people were trying to stand up -- but they were no longer people," he said. "There were people without parts of of their bodies." He saw one person without a stomach as it had all fallen out.
"My mother told me -- `We are walking on human remains,`" he said.
Men in security service jackets were everywhere as dozens of ambulances and fire trucks cut off traffic in northern Moscow.
The blast went off between a bustling Moscow subway station and a crowded supermarket. Smoke rose over sections of the Russian capital for several hours over the blast, whose shock waves smashed windows in the station.
News agencies said that the station was closed after the blast and would only reopen when the damage left by the blast was cleared up. Trains were going through the station without stopping.
Passengers were being told through loudspeakers to use different means of transportation or go to other stations.
Russian officials have indicated they believe a pair of female suicide bombers were behind the plane crashes on August 24.
There was considerable nervousness here over Chechen female suicide bombers, who have carried out deadly attacks at a rock concert, on a pavement close to the Kremlin and in another subway station over the past year.
The blast came on the same day that Russian President Vladimir Putin linked the twin plane bombings to the Al-Qaeda network and said those disasters were evidence of international terrorism on Russian soil in Chechnya.
The bombing also occurred two days after controversial presidential elections in separatist Chechnya, which the Moscow-backed candidate won in a landslide despite strong international criticism of how the vote was run.