The explosion seriously damaged 36 apartments in the residential area and slightly harmed 95 others.

Witnesses at the scene said they suspected the explosion was caused by a bomb.

Colonel Duong Van Giap, head of the city’s Police Department of Criminal Investigation on Social Order (PC 45) yesterday said the police collected several metal pieces at the scene identified as materials that could be used to make a bomb.

Initial investigations from the Ministry of Public Security indicated that gunpowder used to create the bomb caused the explosion.

The police said Pham Van Cuong, 41, of northern Nam Dinh Province’s Nam Hung Village, a scrap collector, who rented one first-floor apartment at No 15-TT 19 of the residential area to run his scrap shop, was identified as the culprit. Cuong was one of the dead victims.

At about 3:10pm on Saturday, the blast occurred when Cuong took an object shaped like an oxygen cylinder in front of his shop and tried to cut it up to sell. The cylinder had a diameter of 40-45 cm, a length of 80 cm and weighed more than 100 kg. The blast left a 4-square-metre crater at the scene.

Chairman of the capital People’s Committee Nguyen Duc Chung ordered authorised agencies to give financial support to the families of the deceased VNĐ5 million (US$224) each, families of seriously-injured people VNĐ3 million ($134) each and families of injured people VNĐ2 million ($90) each.

For people whose apartments were damaged by the blast, Chung required the authorised agencies to arrange temporary accommodation for them until the situation was fixed.

The police investigation is ongoing.

Shares from survivors

The two seriously-injured people were taken to the Military Hospital 103 while the injured people were hospitalised at the Ha Dong General Hospital immediately after the blast.

Le Thi Kim Phuong, 33, who lives in the bloc opposite the blast scene, received 40 stitches on her faces and arms and said “I heard a boom when I was bringing orange juice to my daughter.”

“Glass doors suddenly shattered near me, I shielded myself from the glass with my arms,” she added.

Tran Thanh Huyen, 26, who was also injured in the blast, said “Within 5-7 seconds, tables, chairs and glass doors were totally broken.”

“I saw nothing but burnt-down motorbikes, uprooted trees and things that had collapsed,” she said. 

Bomb materials found at site of Hanoi blast

Metal pieces similar to materials that are traditionally used to make bombs were found among debris at the scene of an explosion that killed four and injured 10 in the Van Phu urban area in Hanoi’s Ha Dong district on March 19.

Hanoi police revealed the information on March 20 as they announced the initial outcomes of investigation into the explosion, which occurred in front of house No. 15 – TT19 in the Van Phu urban area, Phu La ward, at 3:10 pm on March 19.

The owner of the house was Pham Van Cuong, born in 1975 in Nam Truc district of the northern province of Nam Dinh, who rented the house from 2013 to use as a waste-metal storage site. He often used a blowtorch to cut scrap metal into smaller pieces for sale.

At around 8:30 a.m. on March 19, Cuong asked a young man living nearby help him bring a rusty iron cylinder to the pavement in front of the house, according to witness testimony. The cylinder was between 40 and 45 cm in diameter, 80 cm in length and weighed 100kg.

Cuong used a blowtorch to cut open the object, which ignited the blast.

The explosion damaged 36 houses. Another 95 houses near the scene had their glass, walls and doors broken.

Colonel Duong Van Giap, head of the Hanoi Department of Public Security’s police office for investigation of social order-related crime, said investigators at the scene collected many iron and cast-iron pieces.

Preliminary examinations showed that the explosive that caused the blast is also the type usually used to make bombs and mines.

The case is still under investigation.

VNS/VNA