Crimea college attack - live updates: Deadly bombing before gunman ‘kills everyone he could find’

'Home-made' device was rigged with shrapnel, investigators say

Scene outside school in Crimea following terror blast

Russia's top investigative agency is probing a bomb that killed at least 18 people at a vocational college in Crimea, the province Russia annexed in 2014.

The explosion in a cafeteria in the city of Kerch injured another 50 or more people before a lone gunman went on a rampage, authorities said. Witness accounts differed with some claiming to have seen multiple attackers.

Sergei Melikov, a deputy chief of the Russian National Guard, said the explosive device was home-made and the Investigative Committee, the nation’s most senior investigative agency, said the device had been rigged with shrapnel.

Explosives experts were inspecting the college building for other possible bombs, according to Anti-Terrorism Committee spokesman Andrei Przhezdomsky.

Russian president Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters that officials are looking into a possible terrorist attack. He did not elaborate. Mr Peskov said Mr Putin had instructed investigators and intelligence agencies to conduct a thorough probe and offered condolences to the families of the victims.

Additional reporting by agencies

Key Points

• Attack categorised as 'mass murder', not terror
• At least 19 killed
• Fellow student behind attack, say top officials

[17 October 2018 19:33 · Chris Baynes]

We're wrapping up our live coverage of the attack in Kerch now. Our Moscow correspondent Oliver Carroll has filed this summary of today's events: