Around 25 people taken to hospital after explosion in Gothenburg
STOCKHOLM (REUTERS) – About 25 people were taken to hospital after an explosion hit a residential building in the town of Gothenburg early on Tuesday (Sept 28) morning, news agency TT reported.
Mr Tony Stromberg, operations manager at the Swedish Ambulance Service, said some injuries were considered serious.
Swedish police said on its website that it was working to evacuate people living in the area, adding that an investigation has been launched into the so-called public destruction, and the extent of the damage is not clear.
“Several apartments and stairwells are affected. It is at present unclear what has caused the explosion,” the emergency services for the wider Gothenburg area said.
Hundreds of residents of the building in Annette, Gothenburg were reportedly evacuated to a nearby church.
Ms Jessica Goteborgs-Posten, a resident of the building, said she had to jump off her apartment’s balcony for safety after she was woken up by a noise at 4.30am.
She said: “We thought we could go down the stairs because we live so low, but it didn’t work. Instead, we jumped from the balcony and got help from a neighbour who came downstairs.”
According to a report by NRK News, there were 187 cases of explosives used criminally in Sweden in 2019, with many linked to hand grenades and homemade bombs used in gang wars, many in low-income, vulnerable suburbs in big cities like Malmo, Stockholm and Gothenburg.
An analyst at Sweden’s National Bomb Protection said these figures are worrying because “the user of the explosive probably does not possess knowledge of how dangerous this is”.
“We are ten million people in Sweden, but I have not found any equivalent of this level of explosions in any industrialised country,” Ms Ylva Ehrlin told Sweden’s Sveriges Television.
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