Two bombs ripped through crowds of afterwork shoppers, sending bleeding victims staggering into the street. Shoppers carried out others who had burns, broken limbs and cuts, police and witnesses said.
The explosions were minutes apart at the five-story Centrs shopping center ?€” in a section where people can check in their bags while they shop and near the lower-level Norwegian-owned Rimi grocery store.
Latvian Prime Minister Andris Berzins was cutting short his holiday in France and returning home because of the bombing.
Rimi?€™s general-director, Knut Kviskvik, was among those seriously injured. A hospital official said Friday the Norwegian citizen underwent emergency surgery but his condition wasn?€™t life-threatening.
Two women also remained hospitalized with severe burns over some 50 percent of their bodies and deep lacerations, the Baltic News Agency reported.
Twenty-five others suffered less serious burns and cuts caused by flying glass and splinters and some reported hearing loss from the sound of the detonations, which shook nearby buildings.
Investigators turned their attention Friday to possible motives.
This nation of 2.5 million has seen several minor bombings since it regained independence in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but injuries have been rare and many of the bombings were linked to turf battles or extortion rackets by organized crime groups.
Several monuments commemorating Latvian independence and others marking Soviet-era war victories also have been bombed in recent years.
Police spokesman Krists Leiskalns said the possibility the bombings were a terrorist attack was being seriously considered, though he did not elaborate.
Police also have said the bombings could have been related to a business dispute.
Quoting unnamed police officials, BNS said the explosive material used in the attack may have been hexogen, the same explosive Russian police have said was used in apartment bombings in Moscow last September.
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