Date:12/06/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/06/12/stories/2007061206081400.htm

International

Many feared dead in blast

NAIROBI (KENYA): Several persons are feared dead after an explosion hit Nairobi's city centre early on Monday. Eyewitnesses reported seeing many bodies being rushed in ambulances.

Earlier, Police Commissioner Hussein Ali said at least one person was killed in the blast which went off shortly after 8 a.m. at a restaurant in the downtown. The cause of the blast was not clear, but Mr. Ali said, ``it was something that somebody was carrying.''

An eyewitness reported seeing two bodies at the scene which is 500 metres from the former site of U.S. embassy which was bombed in 1998. Doctors at the Kenyatta Hospital said they had received 31 victims of the blast who are under treatment. The nation was last hit by bomb in 1998 when the United States embassy in Nairobi was brought down. — Xinhua