Number of dead from Volgograd suicide bombing act reaches 16
VOLGOGRAD. December 30. KAZINFORM - Number of people who died as a result of a suicide bombing act at the central railway station in Russia's southern city of Volgograd Sunday afternoon has reached sixteen, ITAR-TASS informs referring to the Volgograd region government's officials.
They also indicated that the regional antiterrorist commission, which had had a meeting right at the scene of the terrorist act, had decided to declare a yellow /high/ level of terrorist alert in the region as of 19:00 Moscow Standard Time on Sunday, December 29, for a period of fifteen days.
Vladimir Ustinov, the Russian President's plenipotentiary representative in the Southern Federal District took part in the meeting.
Russia has three levels of the terrorist alert - elevated /'blue'/, high /'yellow'/ and critical /'red'/. The yellow level is declared if there are confirmations of a real possibility of terrorist acts.
A female suicide bomber set off an explosive device at the entrance of Volgograd's central railway station at 12:45 Moscow time on Sunday. Apart from the 16 deaths, as many as 45 people were injured and 40 of them were admitted to hospitals.
Russia's federal Interior Ministry said the woman, who behaved in a suspicious way, was notices by a police sergeant when she had just entered the ground floor of the building. She set the explosive device off when he had come up to her at distance of a few steps.