By Mahmut Atanur
BEIJING (AA) – Taiwanese Premier Lin Chuan has described an explosion on a commuter train that left 25 people injured as a “malicious incident”.
The official Central News Agency reported Friday that after visiting one of the hospitals where some of the victims of Thursday night’s blast are receiving treatment, Lin said authorities had been instructed to uncover the motives behind the explosion.
The fire department in the capital Taipei said that two of the 25 passengers — a teenage male and a 24-year-old man — sustained serious injuries in the incident, which the office of homeland security refused to confirm as a terror attack.
An official from the criminal investigation bureau said a broken steel tube, measuring 6 centimeters wide and 15 centimeters long, was recovered from a seat in the coach where the blast occurred as the train was approaching a Taipei station.
“Preliminary findings show that the explosive was likely to have been ignited because no detonators were found,” Lee Tzu-wen was quoted as saying by the agency.
He underlined, however, that laboratory tests are ongoing.
Investigators also recovered a black backpack, which Lee said might have contained the tube, at the scene.
After the late night blast, Cabinet spokesman Tung Chen-yuan said that the premier ordered relevant government agencies to investigate the explosion and provide assistance to the victims of the incident, in which flames engulfed the coach.
Local reports had quoted a witness who said that the explosion occurred shortly after a man walked into a coach where he left a “black, long-shaped object” before departing.
