ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, December 4, 1996 TAG: 9612040046
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: PARIS
SOURCE: Associated Press
A bomb tore apart a packed subway car in the heart of Paris on Tuesday, killing two people, wounding dozens and bringing fears of a new bombing campaign like the one that terrorized the city last year.
``It's starting again,'' said Estelle Campos, clutching her 6-and 12-year-old sons tight near the subway station on the edge of the Latin Quarter. ``It's always the same people who pay.''
The bomb was fashioned from a 28-pound gas canister - the signature bomb used in the 1995 attacks that killed eight people and injured 160. Most of those attacks were blamed on Algerian Islamic extremists.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the rush-hour bombing. It happened at 6:05 p.m. at the Port-Royal station on the RER regional line that shuttles thousands of commuters in and out of the French capital. The station is located between the Boulevard St. Michel and the Boulevard Montparnasse, about two miles from the Eiffel Tower and one mile from Notre Dame cathedral.
Police and rescue workers said the bomb killed two people instantly and seriously injured another 35, seven of them critically. About 50 other people were slightly hurt.
Europe 1 radio, citing sources close to the investigation, said the canister was packed with nails, and that one body was mutilated by the shrapnel.
French radio said some passengers had seen an abandoned package on the train before the explosion.
The blast blew the doors off the subway car, the second in a long train. The entire train jolted forward at the detonation, a passenger in the rear of the train told French radio.
The passenger said he grabbed a fire extinguisher and pushed through the panicked crowd to reach the burned-out hulk of the subway car.
``The car was still burning. There were no more seats. The doors were folded in half,'' he said.
Mutilated people lay on the ground, and one body was already covered with a sheet, he said.
Witnesses described a scene of panic, of thick black smoke, the chilling wail of ambulances and paramedics frantically carrying away the wounded on stretchers.
``I saw lots and lots of smoke, and I heard a big boom,'' said a man who gave his name only as Jean-Francois. ``People were crying and in a state of shock.''
The first ambulances were on the scene within two minutes, a witness said. The wounded were rushed to a nearby military hospital specializing in trauma victims.
A somber President Jacques Chirac condemned ``these unacceptable acts, these barbaric acts that always attack innocent people.''
Prime Minister Alain Juppe said the government had reinstated an emergency plan, tightening borders and mobilizing hundreds of soldiers and machine-gun toting police.
LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: Map by staff. KEYWORDS: FATALITYby CNB