Report: Blast kills 3, injures 18 in Turkish Mediterranean resort city

Monday, August 28th 2006, 11:22 am

By: News On 6

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) _ An explosion Monday in the Mediterranean city of Antalya killed three people and injured 18 others in the second blast in a Turkish resort area in as many days, private NTV television said.

Firefighters who put out a blaze ignited by the blast discovered two burned bodies in the street, police spokesman Akif Aktug told the state-owned Anatolia news agency.

An injured person died later in a hospital, NTV reported.

Eighteen other people were injured in the explosion in front of a city-run business center near the gate of a historic castle in downtown Antalya, NTV said.

``The cause of the explosion is still under investigation,'' said Guzide Ormeci, a spokeswoman for the governor's office.

CNN broadcast images from the resort town showing the injured arriving at the hospital in taxis or lying on the ground at the scene of the blast, waiting to be loaded into ambulances.

The windows of the building's first two floors all appeared to have been blown out.

The blast followed a Sunday night bomb attack that injured 21 people, including 10 British tourists, in the resort of Marmaris.

No one claimed responsibility for that attack but suspicion fell on Kurdish guerrillas who have staged similar attacks in the past.

Antalya is a popular resort city that attracts millions of Russian and German tourists each year.