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Last Monday, April 15, two bombs exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, US. According to FBI, those two bombs were created from pressure cookers and possibly were detonated remotely by cellphones.

The two bombs blasted around 2:50 pm EST. Within moments, the whole area became covered under smoke.

The blasts killed 3 people including an 8-year-old boy and injured more than 176 people including runners. But among the injured people, mostly were the visitors.

In very short time, police and FBI arrived there, tackled the situation, helped the injured people and later started investigation.

At the incident area FBI found two pressure cookers fully contorted and shredded backpack in which the bombs were reportedly hidden. FBI mentioned that the bombs which were inside the backpack and for which the Boston Marathon carnage occurred were an “Improvised Explosive Device (IED)” made out of a common pressure cooker, loaded with shrapnel and detonated via timers.

A person keeping himself anonymous briefed on the Boston Marathon investigation that the explosives were in 6-liter pressure cookers and placed in black duffel bags. He also said that the explosives were placed on the ground and contained shards of metal, nails and ball bearings.

Be noted, pressure cooker bomb is a common and low-rent bomb and can be made with readily available materials like a bit of TNT or other explosive in a sealed pressure cooker as simple or as complex as the builder decides. The bombs can be triggered remotely and the pressure cooker turns itself into shrapnel. The size of the blast depends on the size of the pressure cooker and the amount of explosive placed inside. Apart from this, these type of bombs are designed to build up tremendous pressure while used legitimately, and can be outfitted with all sorts of timers and triggers, from stopwatches to garage door openers.

In 2006, due to blast of pressure cooker bombs, more than 130 people died in Mumbai. In 2010, a pressure cooker bomb was found at the Times Square but that bomb was diffused before the blast occurs. It is said that pressure cooker bombs were used in the Hyderabad bombings in India in February this year. Those bombs killed 17 people and injured more than 119 people. But many people have attributed the tragic incident of the Boston Marathon as a “terrorist attack.”

In a Tuesday press conference, FBI Special Agent Richard Deslauriers said that investigators “will go to the ends of the Earth” to find those people behind the blast.

Source: NY Daily News, Daily Mail NBC
Image Credits: AP, Reuters

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