Blast at Mall Near Kremlin Hurts 41

An explosion Tuesday night in a popular shopping arcade located next to the Kremlin destroyed several shops and injured 41 people, five of them seriously.

Officials said that it was too soon to tell if the blast was caused by a bomb but that they were treating it as an “act of terrorism.”

“The people who did this are inhuman, barbarians,” said Moscow Mayor Yuri M. Luzhkov.

The explosion occurred at 8 p.m. in a video game arcade in the multilevel Manezh mall, located underneath a square in central Moscow adjacent to the walls of the Kremlin.

Nodar Eriashvili, a 39-year-old law journal editor, was window-shopping about 10 yards from the video game hall when he heard a bang.

“It didn’t sound like a bomb, rather like a glass object crashing, like a chandelier. The screams that came afterward were much louder,” he said. “The room was dark, but there was glass scattered everywhere and moans and screams coming from all around me.”

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, and authorities declined to speculate on who might be involved.

But some of the people milling around outside the site expressed fears that the blast might have been connected to recent unrest in southern Russia, where Muslim militants in the republics of Chechnya and Dagestan are seeking independence. Earlier Tuesday, Chechen leader Shamil Basayev had called for a 20-year war to free Muslims from Russian rule.

“I’m afraid this is only the beginning,” said Olga Ivleva, a 21-year-old student. “The war is coming to Moscow. They said on television [the Dagestan conflict] is over, but here, these things never end.”

Russian officials said last week that their troops had driven Muslim fighters out of Dagestan and into neighboring Chechnya, which has had virtual autonomy since rebels there defeated Russian troops in 1996. However, fighting reportedly flared up again this week in Dagestan.

Television footage from the site of the Moscow blast showed shattered game machines, twisted cafe chairs and floors spattered with blood.

Ambulance officials said 41 people were taken to hospitals for treatment, 24 of whom were hospitalized overnight. Of those, five were in serious condition, according to Alexander A. Zdanovich, spokesman for the Federal Security Service.

“There is no threat to their lives, but their injuries are substantial,” he told reporters at the scene.

In April, a device exploded on the 20th floor of the Intourist Hotel, just a few hundred yards from the Manezh and the Kremlin. Eleven people were injured in that blast, which apparently was connected to a business dispute.

In 1996, during Russia’s war against separatists in Chechnya, several bombs were set off in Moscow. One device ripped through a subway car at 9 p.m., killing four.

Last November, a car bomb exploded outside one of the gates to the Kremlin, injuring four people but causing little other damage.

Sergei L. Loiko of The Times’ Moscow Bureau contributed to this report.