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Explosion in Manila
The busy Glorietta shopping mall in Manila, damaged by a powerful explosion that killed at least eight people. Photograph: Bullit Marquez/AP
The busy Glorietta shopping mall in Manila, damaged by a powerful explosion that killed at least eight people. Photograph: Bullit Marquez/AP

Shopping centre explosion kills eight in Manila

This article is more than 16 years old

At least eight people have been killed and 70 injured by an explosion that tore through a busy shopping centre in the Philippines capital, Manila.

The cause of the lunchtime blast was not immediately clear, but police said they were not ruling out a bomb attack.

The explosion left a crater and caused extensive damage throughout the Glorietta 2 shopping centre, toppling walls, dislodging roofs and sending concrete blocks crashing on to cars outside.

Initial reports suggested that a gas cylinder had exploded in a restaurant, but police later discounted the theory and the national police chief, Avelino Razon, said that a bomb attack could not be ruled out.

"I was told by officials of the explosives and ordnance disposal division that it could be a bomb but it's not definite yet," he said.

Taxi driver Mario Em had just dropped off two passengers at the mall in the Makati financial district when the blast hurled the two women against his vehicle, killing them instantly. "The blast was so loud I lost my hearing," he told reporters.

Police and the military in Manila were put on the highest state of alert and the president, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, ordered investigators "to leave no stone unturned".

Al-Qaida-linked militants, who have waged a bloody bombing campaign in the southern Philippines, have targeted Manila in the past.

In 2004, militants from the Islamist Abu Sayyaf group blew up a passenger ferry in Manila Bay, killing 116 people in the country's worst terrorist attack. The following year, four people were killed and dozens wounded when a bomb exploded on a Manila bus and in two southern cities.

Earlier this year, authorities were alerted to an alleged terror plot to plant bombs in Manila's business districts of Makati and Ortigas.

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