Umruqi train station bombing solved within 24 hours

The blast that occurred Wednesday in Urumqi Railway Station was investigated and the case solved within 24 hours due to the joint efforts of criminal detective forces from the Ministry of Public Security and provincial and municipal police departments, said Tao Hongjun, deputy head of Urumqi Public Security bureau to local media.

A police investigation showed that Sedierding Shawuti, 39, from Shaya county of southern Xinjiang's Aksu prefecture, and another attacker were influenced by religious extremism. They stabbed people at the South Railway Station exit with knives and set off explosives about 7:10 pm after a train arrived at one of the platforms on Wednesday, the information office of the region said on Thursday evening.

According to the report of Xinjiang Daily on Saturday, the case happened in four seconds from the moment the suspects used the knives to when they detonated the explosives. After that railway station police who were patrolling nearby arrived at the scene in one minute. The municipal government immediately launched its emergency plan. Over 150 staffers in the local communities, including sanitation workers and police officers, arrived in three minutes. All injured were sent to nearby hospitals by police car, patrol vehicles and even civilians’ cars.

“When we got the mission to rescue, the first injured were sent to our hospital. There was no delay,” said Liu Hongxia, director of the medical department of Xinjiang Chinese Medicine Hospital. The hospital, the nearest one to the blast site, organized all surgical doctors for rescue. After some severe injuries were treated, experts from the other two famed hospitals in Xinjiang also assisted.

The over 70 injuries were mostly temporary ear problems. ENT experts from all over the region carried out one-to-one treatment. On May 2, some patients were released from the hospital.

Only one hour after the blast, operations in the railway station and suburban area returned to normal. The in-and-out night trains affected. On Thursday morning, the first intercity train left the station on time. Hu Ruming, a shopkeeper less than 20 meters from the bombing site, said,“I opened my shop in the early morning, the business is not influenced by the case.”