Blast in Indian tourist city
2010-12-07 18:31
Lucknow - An explosion ripped through a crowded bathing point on Tuesday in the holy Indian city of Varanasi - a major tourist destination - injuring dozens of people including some foreigners, police said.
It was not immediately clear what caused the blast at around 13:00 GMT at a ritual bathing "ghat" on the banks of the holy Hindu river Ganges in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.
"There has been a big blast... and some people including foreigners are injured," police official Brij Lal told AFP in the state capital, Lucknow. Television reports said as many as 20 people had been injured.
"We saw at least eight people who seemed to have been injured by metal pellets in the blast," one witness who identified himself as Rajesh told India TV.
"At least two of them were foreigners," he said. Television footage showed footage of one blood-covered foreigner being treated in a Varanasi hospital.
Some 20 people were killed in two blasts at a temple and a rail station in 2006 in Varanasi, which is one of India's holiest sites.
Large numbers of Hindus gather in the city throughout the year to cremate their dead on the banks of the Ganges, and bathe in the waters.
- SAPA
