Death toll rises to 50 in suicide truck-bomb blast

The death toll in a suicide truck-bomb attack on a military hospital near Chechnya rose to 50 today, after rescuers pulled more bodies out of the wreckage.

There is no hope of finding more survivors, Lt. Col. Yuri Miroshnichenko, spokesman for the Emergency Situations Ministry’s southern Russian office in Rostov-on-Don, said.

Officials also believed there were no more bodies buried under the collapsed four-storey building, and were switching the operation from a search-and-rescue to a clean-up effort, he said.

In the attack on Friday an unidentified driver rammed a truck packed with explosives through the gates of the hospital in the North Ossetia region city of Mozdok, where dozens of soldiers were recovering from wounds they suffered fighting in Chechnya.

Russian officials have said they suspect Chechen rebels of being behind the attack, which bore similarities with other recent bombings.

Sixty-four people remain in hospital today, Miroshnichenko said.