Crimea college attack - live updates: Deadly bombing before gunman apos;kills everyone he could findapos;
Russia's top investigative agency is probing a bomb that killed at least 18 people at a vocational college in Crimea, the province Russia annexed in 2014.
The explosion in a cafeteria in the city of Kerch injured another 50 or more people before a lone gunman went on a rampage, authorities said. Witness accounts differed with some claiming to have seen multiple attackers.
Sergei Melikov, a deputy chief of the Russian National Guard, said the explosive device was home-made and the Investigative Committee, the nation’s most senior investigative agency, said the device had been rigged with shrapnel.
A second explosive device was found among the possessions of the student suspected of carrying out the deadly attack, officials have told RIA news agency.
Vladislav Roslyakov, 18, is believed to have detonated a homemade bomb of Kerch Polytechnic College's cafeteria before shooting at other pupils and killing himself.
The second explosive device was not detonated and has now been disarmed, RIA reported.
A 15-year-old pupil at Kerch Polytechnic College has described scenes of panic following the explosion.
Anastasia Yenshina said she was in a toilet on the ground floor of the building with friends when the horror unfolded.
She told Reuters: "I came out and there was dust and smoke. I couldn't understand, I'd been deafened. Everyone started running. I did not know what to do. Then they told us to leave the building through the gymnasium.
"Everyone ran there... I saw a girl lying there. There was a child who was being helped to walk because he could not move on his own. The wall was covered in blood. Then everyone started to climb over the fence, and we could still hear explosions. Everyone was scared. People were crying."
German chancellor Angela Merkel has offered her condolences to the victims of the attack.
Government spokesman Steffan Seibert said on Twitter: "Devastating reports of the attack on a school on the Crimea: Chancellor Merkel mourns the many lost young lives. Our sympathy is for the families of the victims and all the injured."
The Kremlin's anti-terror committee has confirmed that explosive devices were found at the scene. A police source told RBC Media that the attacker left a rucksack in the college canteen. The same source revealed Mr Roslyakov was granted a firearms licence on 8 September.
Authorities' accounts of what has happened in Kerch have shifted today.
Initially it was said to have been a gas explosion; then officials said an explosive device went off in the cafeteria of Kerch Polytechnic College; then Crimea's head Sergei Aksyonov said a lone gunman had carried out the attack before killing himself.
However, witnesses appear to have reported more than one attacker was involved.
Officially, one person was involved. One bomb exploded and it is this device that authorities said was home-made and laced with shrapnel.
Roslyakov went on a shooting spree in the college before taking his own life, the investigative committee said. The chief suspect could be seen beforehand on CCTV entering the school with a rifle, it added.
Russia's national anti-terror committee has said there may have been more than one attacker. It is conducting a search for those behind the bombing, it said.
According to Sergei Aksyonov, head of the Crimean authority, the attack was carried out by a 22-year-old student, who then killed himself. Mash, a social media channel associated with the police, identified the student as Vladislav Roslyakov.
Yekaterina Keizo, a journalist working for local media Kerch FM, told The Independent that witnesses spoke of two men entering the building: "One of them blew himself up, and the other left the school."
Gunmen also reportedly stalked the halls of the college following the blast.
Olga Grebennikova, director of the vocational institution, told KerchNet TV that men armed with automatic rifles had burst into the college and "killed everyone they saw". She said students and staff were among victims.
The Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper quoted student Semyon Gavrilov as saying he fell asleep during a lecture and woke up to the sound of shooting. He said he looked out and saw a young man with a rifle shooting at people.
"I locked the door, hoping he wouldn't hear me," the paper quoted Mr Gavrilov as saying.
Russia's National Anti-Terrorism Committee said the blast at the college in the city of Kerch in eastern Crimea was caused by an unidentified explosive device.
Russian officials have said the blast from an explosive device killed at least 13 people and injured at least 50 others - and called it a potential terror attack.
The Independent is covering the Crimea explosion live.
Explosives experts were inspecting the college building for other possible bombs, according to Anti-Terrorism Committee spokesman Andrei Przhezdomsky.
Russian president Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters that officials are looking into a possible terrorist attack. He did not elaborate. Mr Peskov said Mr Putin had instructed investigators and intelligence agencies to conduct a thorough probe and offered condolences to the families of the victims.
Additional reporting by agencies
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