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An explosion in an apartment building in a residential area in central Gothenburg injured as many as 20 people.
A violent explosion in an apartment building in Gothenburg, Sweden caused multiple fires, injuring as many as 20 people and being forced to evacuate hundreds of people.
The explosion occurred before 5 am (03:00 GMT) on Tuesday in the Anedal district of Sweden’s second largest city. The flames spread to several apartments, and fire department staff are still trying to put out the fire.
Jon Peel, the operations manager of the local rescue service department, told reporters that the explosion occurred in the inner courtyard of the building and the entrance gate was blown up. He added that some people jumped out of the window to escape.
Police spokesman Thomas Fuxborg said that the cause of the explosion is not yet known, but he told Swedish television station TV4 that investigators believe that a foul may be involved. He said that they are investigating whether any tenants may be targeted.
“We suspect that someone might have placed something exploding,” Fuxborg said.
‘The whole apartment shakes’
Ingrid Frederiksson, a spokesperson for the Saargrenska University Hospital, said that 16 people were taken to the main hospital in Gothenburg. She said four people (three elderly women and a man in his 50s) were receiving treatment for serious injuries. Some people with minor injuries were treated at the scene.
Lars Hulten, a resident of the building, told the Gothenburg Daily that the explosion woke him up.
“This is probably the loudest thing I’ve heard. The whole apartment vibrated. The bed was vibrating,” he said.
Hulten said he saw desperate people “hanging on the balcony and climbing over the balcony. One fell over. It was very dramatic, and the fire and smoke went very fast.”
Another witness, Lars-Gunnar Wolmesjo, told the Express that he also saw people on the balcony, “Some people climbed down, some jumped down, and some people had to wait for the firefighters to pick them up with a ladder.”
‘Crime cannot be ruled out’
At the time of the explosion, there was an increase in violence among organized criminal groups in Scandinavian countries.
On June 30, a policeman was shot dead in Gothenburg. Since then, a 17-year-old suspect was arrested.
Earlier this year, the National Crime Prevention Commission stated that Sweden is the only European country that has seen a significant increase in fatal shootings since 2000, mainly because of violent gangs.
In 2019, a strong explosion occurred in two adjacent apartment buildings in the southern city of Linköping, causing 25 injuries and damage to more than 100 apartments. The police believe that behind the explosion was a dispute between rival criminal groups. No one was arrested.
On Tuesday, the Swedish media immediately focused on the possibility that the Gothenburg bombing might be at odds with the underworld, but Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lowen repeatedly refused to speculate on the motive.
“We don’t want to speculate about what this is. It’s too early to draw conclusions. We don’t know what the motive is. We don’t know anything,” Lovewen said.
“We all want to know more. We want to know what happened and what caused the explosion, but it is clear that crime cannot be ruled out,” Interior Minister Mikael Damberg added at the same press conference with Lofven.
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