Key Points
- The explosion on a busy avenue in Istanbul has killed six and wounded 81 people.
- Turkey's president has called it a bomb attack, vowing the culprits will be punished.
- No one has claimed responsibility for the blast.
Six people were killed and 81 others wounded on Sunday when an explosion rocked a busy pedestrian street in central Istanbul in what Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called a bomb attack that "smells like terrorism".
Ambulances raced to the scene on the packed Istiklal Avenue, which police had quickly cordoned off. The area, in the Beyoglu district of Turkey's largest city, had been crowded as usual at the weekend with shoppers, tourists and families.
Video footage obtained by Reuters showed the moment the blast occurred at 4:13 pm (12:13 am AEDT), sending debris into the air and leaving several people lying on the ground, while others fled.
Hours after the explosion, Vice President Fuat Oktay visited the site to give the latest death and injury toll, and promised to resolve the matter "very soon".
Authorities later said a government ministry worker and his daughter were among the dead. Five people were in intensive care in hospital, two of them in a critical condition.
A suspect was arrested by the early hours of Monday.
"The person who planted the bomb has been arrested," interior minister Suleyman Soylu said in a statement broadcast by the official Anadolu news agency.
"According to our findings, the PKK terrorist organisation is responsible," he said.
The PKK, blacklisted as a terrorist group by Ankara as well as its Western allies, has kept up a deadly insurgency for Kurdish self-rule in southeastern Turkey since the 1980s.
Regularly targeted by Turkish military operations, the group is also at the heart of a tussle between Sweden and Turkey, which has been blocking Stockholm's entry into NATO since May, accusing it of leniency towards the PKK.
The site of the blast was filled with men, women and children spending their Sunday afternoon shopping along the busy avenue. Source: Getty / Burak Kara
"Efforts to defeat Turkey and the Turkish people through terrorism will fail today just as they did yesterday and as they will tomorrow," Mr Erdogan told a news conference before flying to Indonesia for a summit of the Group of 20 leading economies.
"Our people can rest assured that the culprits... will be punished as they deserve," he said, adding that initial information suggested "a woman played a part" in it.
"It would be wrong to say this is undoubtedly a terrorist attack but the initial developments and initial intelligence from my governor is that it smells like terrorism," he added.
Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag was quoted by state-run Anadolu as saying a woman had sat on a bench for more than 40 minutes before leaving minutes before the blast, suggesting a bomb that was timed to explode or was detonated from afar.
Emergency personnel secure the scene after the explosion on Sunday afternoon, as Istiklal Avenue was filled with shoppers and families. Source: Getty / Cem Tekkesinoglu
'People froze'
Reuters footage showed people attending to victims after the blast, and later investigators in white outfits collecting material from the scene, where pieces of a concrete planter were scattered on the avenue.
"When I heard the explosion, I was petrified, people froze, looking at each other. Then people started running away. What else can you do," said Mehmet Akus, 45, a restaurant worker on Istiklal.
"My relatives called me, they know I work on Istiklal. I reassured them," he told Reuters.
A helicopter flew above the scene and a number of ambulances were parked in nearby Taksim Square. The Turkish Red Crescent said blood was being transferred to nearby hospitals.
If confirmed, it would be the first major bomb blast in Istanbul in several years.
Members of a forensic team work after at the site of the blast, after Turkey's president vowed to bring any perpetrators to justice. Source: Getty / Yasin Akgul
Condemnations of the attack and condolences for the victims rolled in from several countries including Greece, Egypt, Ukraine, Britain, Azerbaijan, Italy and Pakistan.
On Twitter, European Council President Charles Michel sent condolences to victims after the "horrific news".
