Reports: Four explosions rock Istanbul

Four explosions rocked Istanbul today and some reports said the British Consulate in the city was severely damaged.

The city’s stock exchange halted trading, TV news channels reported. Information about casualties was not immediately available.

One of the explosions was near a bank and another near a mosque, according to private CNN-Turk and NTV television.

Details were sketchy, but the first explosion reportedly severely damaged a building in an affluent neighbourhood. People were seen fleeing the scene in panic, reports said.

English teacher Chris Kitrinos told CNN he worked in a school next door to the consulate.

“It’s total chaos, ambulances can’t get to the scene.”

He said he had been concerned for some time that cars could drive past the consulate.

“And now of course it’s happened,” he added.

Another blast was reported near an office of the HSBC bank.

Turkish TV reported that three people had died in the HSBC attack and several people were wounded in the consulate bomb, in a busy residential area.

In London the British Foreign Office had no immediate comment.

A security guard eye witness said that at least three people had been killed in the Istanbul blasts.

There were reports there had been up to five explosions.

Turkish TV pictures showed a number of mutilated bodies lying in front of a badly-damaged modern office block, thought to the HSBC building in the Levent district.

The blasts followed Saturday’s suicide attacks on two synagogues by two Islamic militants which killed 23 people.

Al-Qaida claimed responsibility for those attacks.

The British consulate was targeted in April when an explosive device was hurled at the building. No one was injured on that occasion.

Ambulances could be seen taking injured away. The front of the HSBC building, a towering white block in the commercial district, appeared to be shattered.

“It sounds like it is pretty bad,” said a British embassy spokesman.

Chris Kitrinos, an English teacher, told CNN television: “The damage is very extensive. I’ve been told that there are people lying around and I am looking at people lying on the ground lying.

“Civilians are carrying people away from the scene...There is debris and bodies around.”