Apartment Blast Kills at Least 11 in Russia’s Far East

An explosion shattered an apartment building in Russia’s Far East, killing at least 11 people and injuring seven others, emergency officials said Tuesday.

Ten apartments were destroyed in the five-story building in Khabarovsk. Rescue teams were looking for two people believed buried in the debris, a spokeswoman at the Emergency Situations Ministry said.

Authorities said they were trying to determine the cause of the blast, which occurred around dawn. Police hadn’t ruled out a bomb, but they were also considering the possibility of a natural gas leak, the Interfax news agency said.

Russia has been on edge since a string of apartment bombings in Moscow and two other cities killed 300 people in September. Those blasts were blamed on Chechen rebels, and Russian officials have recently warned that more terrorist acts were planned in response to the war in Chechnya. However, explosions caused by faulty gas lines are common in Russia.