Up to 100 feared dead in Moscow explosion

There were fears last night that up to 100 people may have died in an apartment explosion in a working-class suburb of Moscow. While the cause of the blast had still to be determined, Moscow's Mayor, Mr Yuri Luzhkov, said there were signs that a "terrorist act" had taken place.

An anonymous caller to the newsroom of the independent Interfax news agency in Moscow said that the explosion was "our response to the bombing of villages in Chechnya and Dagestan".

Since August 7th Russian forces have been in action in the Dagestan region against separatists who have vowed to set up an Islamic state. At the weekend the Russian airforce bombed villages across the border and yesterday the deputy speaker of the Russian parliament, Mr Selim Bishayev, said the raids had killed 128 people.

Thirty-two bodies were recovered from the ruins of the apartment building in the Pechnatniki district of south-east Moscow. The explosion took place shortly after midnight on Wednesday night. Up to 70 people were unaccounted for last night but Mr Anatoly Nikitin of the Moscow Emergency Services said his workers could not be sure how many were under the rubble.

"It is possible that some people were out of Moscow and that others may have been at dachas in the countryside," he said.

The two centre sections of the long nine-storey building collapsed completely and 12 hours after the blast smoke was still billowing from what once was home for dozens of families.

Post-war dormitory housing for workers in Moscow was constructed on a pre-fabricated, modular basis and the collapse of the sections appeared to have taken place along the seams between separate modules of the construction, leaving the authorities open to charges of shoddy construction.

Rescue workers using heavy lifting equipment stopped for three minutes' silence every hour to listen for cries of help from under the rubble. Other men wearing jackets bearing the initials FSB, the successor of the KGB, could be seen picking through the ruins. Some residents said that the basement of the buildings had been used to store paint and chemicals and that this may have added force to the explosion.

Mayor Luzhkov, who was at the scene from an early stage, said at first that the disaster was probably due to a gas explosion. He pointed out that the housing complex was an unlikely target for terrorists as it housed people of modest means. Later Mr Luzhkov issued a statement saying there were "now outward signs" that a terrorist act had been committed.

The Emergencies Minister, Mr Sergei Shoigu, made a similar claim as did the Interior Minister, Mr Vladimir Rushailo. The FSB in a later announcement said that the explosion was caused by either "an industrially-produced explosive or a mixture of explosive substances," ruling out a gas explosion.

In a telegram to Mr Luzhkov President Boris Yeltsin said he was "deeply shocked by the night's events in Moscow" adding that the relatives of those who had died were in need of "strength and courage to survive the dreadful shock they had suffered".

Russia battled on two fronts against Islamic rebels in Dagestan yesterday as government forces intensified efforts to drive out insurgents, amid reports of heavy losses on both sides. Military commanders hurled infantry and armour against the rebel stronghold of Gamiyakh in western Dagestan as army and interior ministry forces sought to push back rebels closing in on the strategic transport hub of Khasavyurt.

In central Dagestan, federal troops again failed to suppress an Islamist insurrection, pulling out of the rebel bastion of Karamakhy where both sides were said to have suffered heavy losses.