An explosion killed at least one person and injured 12 others near the German city of Nuremberg on Sunday(July 24) and authorities said it was believed to be intentional.
Eyewitnesses spoke of a a loud bang and others of a rucksack exploding, and police later said the person killed in the blast, a man with a backpack, was likely carrying an explosive device and acted alone.
There was no immediate information on his identity but the spokesman added that three of the 12 people injured were in serious condition.
“I was going for a walk and wanted to listen to the concert in the Reithalle (riding school) from outside, as you do, I went down the street past the youth centrre, and then suddenly you heard a loud, a really loud bang, it was like an exploding sound, definitely an explosion,” said local resident Thomas Debinski. “In the first moment I was shocked and didnt know what it was, and so ran back, then I got myself together and wanted to see what had happened and if I could help, and by then people started coming towards me, away from the town centre, trying to get away. The fire service came and sealed it all off extensively. That’s what I saw.”
“(People were) definitely panicking,” he said “The rumours that we were hearing immediately were that it had been a gas explosion, but then people came past and said that it was a rucksack that exploded, definitely a rucksack that exploded, someone blew themselves up. And after what just happened in Munich, and today in Reutlingen, what you hear about, It is very disturbing, when you know that such a thing can happen so close to you, in such a small town as Ansbach.”
It was the fourth violent incident in Germany in a week and came as the country was still on edge after the killing of nine people by an 18-year-old Iranian-German gunman in Munich on Friday.
The blast outside a restaurant in the town Ansbach prompted the evacuation of more than 2,000 people from a nearby “Ansbach Open” music festival, police said.
The mayor of Ansbach told reporters the blast was caused by an explosive device, according to the Nordbayern.de news website.
“We were going for some ice-cream and something to drink, shortly after that we heard a big bang from over there and were all stunned, then people ran towards us who were in the cafe, they called the Ansbach Open (festival) security who called the emergency services,” said another man, Christian Hartdeck “Then some came who said they had been hit by it, because a slate fell from the roof.”
Earlier on Sunday, a 21-year-old Syrian refugee was arrested after killing a pregnant woman and injured two other people in the southwestern city of Reutlingen, near Stuttgart.
That attack came after a refugee from Pakistan wielding an axe injured five people near Wuerzbuerg, also in southern Germany, before he was shot dead by police on July 18.
There was no immediate word on possible motives for the explosion, but police said neither Sunday’s machete attack nor Friday’s shooting in Munich bore any sign of connections with Islamic State or other militant groups.
Islamic State claimed responsibility for the July 18 axe attack in Germany. It also claimed responsibility for the July 14 attack in which a Tunisian man drove a truck into Bastille Day holiday crowds in the French city of Nice, killing 84 people.
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2016