960423

Blast kills one,

injures eight in

Georgian capital

TBILISI: One person was killed and eight were injured, six of them seriously, after a blast ripped through a grocer's shop on a packed street in the centre of the Georgian capital Tbilisi on Tuesday, police said.

The head of the city police, Demur Mikadze, said he could not rule out that the blast had been deliberate.

Some witnesses of the explosion, which caused serious damage to two shops near the central market and railway station, speculated it could have been caused by a gas canister.

"We cannot rule out the possibility that it was a bomb," Mikadze said. He said one person was killed and eight were injured. A police officer said six people were in a serious condition.

About 2,000 people gathered near the scene as some 20 rescue workers sifting through the debris. Fire engines waited nearby.

Shattered glass and debris littered the street, the busiest thoroughfare in the capital of the former Soviet republic, after the blast at 1.10 p.m. (0810 GMT).

The volatile Transcaucasus republic of Georgia has been the scene of several bombing incidents since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.-Reuter