Beijing Airport Blast: Wheelchair user hurt
Smoke can be seen inside the arrivals hall. Pic: @ska_kongshanPhotographs posted on Sina Weibo, a Chinese Twitter equivalent, taken by an eyewitness just before an explosion was reported at Beijing airport on Saturday evening, showing a man in a wheelchair who is suspected to be the suicide bomber.
The explosion in Terminal 3 may have been caused by a man in a wheelchair who witnesses claim was holding a bag of explosives.
1:05pm UK, Saturday 20 July 2013
Chinese media report that there has been an explosion in an arrivals hall at Beijing airport.
Pictures posted on the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, Weibo, show smoke in Terminal 3 after the blast at around 6.30pm local time.
There are reports that the explosion may have been caused by someone in a wheelchair.
Eyewitnesses have claimed that a man was sitting in the arrivals hall, shouting and waving a small bag in the air before the explosion took place.
The Sina Weibo microblog of state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) said a man detonated a package of black gunpowder used to make firecrackers just outside the international arrivals exit.
Photos taken in the minutes after the explosion showed a wheelchair lying on its side and medical workers attending to someone and people running through the terminal.
A man, who local media say is from Shandong Province and was born in 1979, was injured in the blast and has been taken to hospital.
No one else was injured in the incident and airport operations are now back to normal.
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