A major explosion did damage to a residential building in the multicultural city of Malmö on early Wednesday morning, with police suspecting the explosion may have been caused by a bomb.
The large explosion is thought to have taken place around 1 a.m. along Stora Nygatan street and damaged several shops and restaurants nearby.
Malmö police spokesman Nils Norling told broadcaster SVT that police were investigating what exactly did detonate to cause the explosion but said that it was far larger than a “banger” firework.
“There has been more damage to the façade and the gate. Most of the windows in adjacent properties have also been smashed and there has been shrapnel damage to façades and parked cars,” Norling said.
“A window of a store completely collapsed when we were at the scene and it is fortunate that no one was there when it detonated because there had been heavy damage,” police officer Peter Martin added.
So far, according to spokesman Norling, the police have no suspects in the case, but they are treating the incident as a crime and are looking into any potential prior threats against people living in the building or any of the businesses in the immediate area.
The suspected bombing comes just three months after an explosion in Gothenburg left one woman dead and 23 people injured.
The main suspect in the case, a 55-year-old who was in the process of being evicted by the owner of the building, was later found dead by police in a body of water just over a week after the explosion.
In March of this year, another explosion in Höganäs in Skåne County saw 40 apartments damaged, with the blast thought to have taken place in the stairwell of an apartment building. Police described the stairwell as having been “blown out”.
Last year, despite the Wuhan virus pandemic, the city of Stockholm saw a record number of explosions.
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