View of ambulances on the scene after an explosion on busy pedestrian Istiklal street in Istanbul, Turkey, November 13, 2022.
Kemal Aslan | Rueters
Six people were killed and 81 others wounded on Sunday when an explosion rocked a busy pedestrian street in central Istanbul in what Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan called a bomb attack that “smells like terrorism.”
Ambulances raced to the scene on the packed Istiklal Avenue, which police had quickly cordoned off. The realm, within the Beyoglu district of Turkey’s largest city, had been crowded as usual on the weekend with shoppers, tourists and families.
Video footage obtained by Reuters showed the moment the blast occurred at 4:13 p.m. local time (1313 GMT), sending debris into the air and leaving several people lying on the bottom, while others fled.
Some 4 hours after the blast, Vice President Fuat Oktay and Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu visited the location of the explosion.
Oktay said the variety of injured was 81 and re-iterated six people died within the explosion.
“We are going to resolve this matter very soon,” Oktay told reporters.
Erdogan told a news conference in Istanbul that the “efforts to defeat Turkey and the Turkish people through terrorism will fail today just as they did yesterday and as they may tomorrow.”
“Our people can rest assured that the culprits behind the attack will probably be punished as they deserve,” he said, adding that initial information suggested “a lady played an element” in it.
“It could be unsuitable to say that is undoubtedly a terrorist attack however the initial developments and initial intelligence from my governor is that it smells like terrorism,” he added.
No one has claimed responsibility for the blast. Istanbul and other Turkish cities have been targeted prior to now by Kurdish separatists, Islamist militants and other groups, including in a series of attacks in 2015 and 2016.
‘People froze’
Reuters footage showed people attending to victims after the blast, and later investigators in white outfits collecting material from the scene, where pieces of a concrete planter were scattered on the avenue.
“After I heard the explosion, I used to be petrified, people froze, taking a look at one another. Then people began running away. What else are you able to do,” said Mehmet Akus, 45, a restaurant employee on Istiklal.
“My relatives called me, they know I work on Istiklal. I reassured them,” he told Reuters.
A helicopter flew above the scene and various ambulances were parked in nearby Taksim Square. The Turkish Red Crescent said blood was being transferred to nearby hospitals.
Vice President Oktay said, “We’re evaluating it as an act of terror”.
If confirmed, it might be the primary major bomb blast in Istanbul in several years.
Twin bombings outside an Istanbul soccer stadium in December 2016 killed 38 people and wounded 155 in an attack claimed by an offshoot of the militant Kurdistan Employees Party (PKK), designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the European Union and america.
Condemnations of the attack and condolences for the victims rolled in from several countries including Greece, Egypt, Ukraine, Britain, Azerbaijan, Italy and Pakistan.
On Twitter, European Council President Charles Michel sent condolences to victims after the “horrific news.”