Russian TV Reporter in Volgograd: Bodies Everywhere, Blood on Snow

The targeted trolleybus, packed with people going to work in the morning rush hour. Photo by Russia Today

The deadly blast, which struck the southern Russian city of Volgograd, killing at least 15 people, took place near a busy market in a trolleybus, packed with people going to work in the morning rush hour, a journalist says.

Maksim Akhmetov, a Russian TV reporter who was at the scene of the blast, has described the scene as "terrible", adding that the bus was "ravaged" and that there were "bodies everywhere, blood on the snow".

The figures given for the number of dead and injured are still fluctuating, but investigators and the Russian Health Ministry told a press conference that 14 people had been killed.

At least 20 others were injured, and Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova said the patients were in "a bad condition with burns, with multiple injuries typical of blast-induced wounds."

She said the injured include a pregnant woman, two 16-year-olds and a baby aged about six months whose parents are assumed dead.

The regional governor has announced five days of mourning for all the victims.

The force of the explosion removed much of the bus's exterior and broke windows in nearby buildings.

"It is now possible to preliminarily say that the explosive device was set off by a suicide bomber - a man whose body fragments have been collected and sent for genetic testing," the Investigative Committee said in a statement.

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