Blast hits central Jakarta - Australian Embassy Targeted ?

9 September, 2004 4:13 PM

It looks like the Australian Embassy in Jakarta may have been the target of a bomb in the last few hours. Will follow the story here on this post - more to come.

update - Australian news reports are now reporting 7 now dead with over 50 wounded. Pictures of the buildings around the blast show evidence of a massive explosion. It is being called a terrorist attack.

Eye witnesses say that it was a car bomb.

'I am now a couple of hundred metres back from the bomb site. It really is a chaotic scene. There are sirens going off in the background - fire engines, ambulances and police are everywhere. A huge crowd has gathered here to try to find out what happened. There is a massive crater outside the Australian embassy. There is a green security fence and the crater is the other side of that.... There are mangled remains of cars and motorbikes that were thrown up into the air by the force of the blast. Eyewitnesses saw two bodies being carried away. I have seen body parts on the ground.' Read more at Eyewitness: Jakarta blast

"A powerful blast has hit Jakarta's central business district near the Australian Embassy, killing at least three people and wounding many more.

Several bodies" were seen just outside the Australian Embassy's 6- meter (20-foot) high steel gate, which was mangled in the blast, CNN's Maria Ressa reported.

The blast -- which Ressa said was "far larger" than a blast which killed 12 in the JW Marriot Hotel in the same district last year -- shattered nearly all the windows in seven surrounding buildings, including several high-rises.

Witnesses reported hearing the blast as far as 10 kilometers (6 miles) away." Read more at CNN.com - Blast hits central Jakarta

A powerful bomb exploded near the Australian Embassy in Jakarta on Thursday, killing at least three people and wounding 50, witnesses and officials said.

No one inside the heavily fortified embassy was wounded in the blast, though windows were shattered, said Lyndall "Sachs, a spokeswoman for the Australian foreign ministry in Canberra. Local security officials said that an Indonesian security guard manning a post outside the gate was among the three dead.

In the same neighborhood last year, a suicide attack at the JW Marriott hotel killed 12 people. Australia, the United States and several other countries have recently warned that Muslim militants may be planning new attacks in Indonesia.

Hospital officials said that more than 50 people were wounded." Read more at Bomb at Australian Embassy Kills Three, Wounds 50

'Six people are believed to have died in a massive blast outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta, the Australian prime minister has said. John Howard said it was thought the explosion was a car bomb. The BBC's Rachel Harvey in Jakarta says the blast left a large crater in the ground and damaged nearby buildings and motor vehicles. Helicopters, ambulances and police units are at the site, in Kuningen, a district to the south of the city.' Read more at Massive blast at Jakarta embassy

Read more at: - Huge Blast in Jakarta, at Least Three Dead
- Terrorists behind fatal bomb blast
- No Australians killed in bomb blast
- Australia not intimidated by bomb: PM
- Jakarta Blast Pictures
- Bomb blast rocks Australian embassy
- Bombing at Australian Embassy in Indonesia Kills Seven, Wounds 98 - Indonesia shares slip after blast
- Australian Embassy in Jakarta Shattered by Blast
- Australian embassy evacuated in Jakarta
- Howard sends envoy, bomb experts
- Bomb blast heard 2km away
- Travel warning issued for Indonesia

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