More than 60 people are believed to have been killed when an explosion ripped through a busy market in Vladikavkaz, capital of the North Ossetia region of Russia.
Russian security services described the explosion as an act of terrorism and said that a bomb containing about 5 kg of TNT had been responsible for the carnage.
Many of those who died were killed when part of a high wall surrounding the market collapsed.
Only one person in the city has registered as a citizen with the Irish Embassy in Moscow. Father Stephen Rodgers, believed to be English-born but of Irish nationality, is a local Catholic priest. A parishioner told The Irish Times by phone yesterday that Father Rodgers was assumed to be safe as he had left Vladikavkaz very early in the morning for the town of Prokhladny. The explosion took place at 11.25 a.m.
The northern Caucasus area in which Vladikavkaz is situated is Russia's most volatile region, containing a patchwork of small nationalities, many of them with centuries-old grudges against each other. The best known and most turbulent area in the region is Chechnya, which has effectively broken away from the Russian Federation after a brutal war in which over 30,000 unarmed civilians are believed to have died.
The Osset nationality, divided between North Ossetia in Russia and South Ossetia in Georgia, has traditionally been the most pro-Russian of the area's peoples As such they have been extremely unpopular with other ethnic groupings, most notably the Ingush, who are closely related to the Chechens. The Ingush claim that part of North Ossetian territory is traditionally theirs and on Thursday more than 10,000 people demonstrated in Nazran, the Ingush capital, to demand that the territory be returned.
Russia's independent NTV channel showed harrowing pictures of the devastation yesterday, with bodies being wheeled away in carts that market traders had used to carry vegetables. Local TV channels interrupted broadcasts to appeal for blood donors but, as everywhere else in Russia, hospitals are in dire need of medical supplies and because of this the death toll is expected to rise.
President Yeltsin's representative in the area, Mr Lev Dzugayev, said: "We are speaking of an unprecedented terrorist act. There are forces that want to destabilise the region, who do not accept peace."
President Yeltsin assumed personal responsibility for the bomb blast and vowed "merciless" revenge against the culprits.
The Russian Prime Minister, Mr Yevgeny Primakov, will meet the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, for talks at Shannon Airport on March 23rd. The talks, which are scheduled to last for an hour, are expected to concentrate on bilateral issues including trade.
Mr Primakov will be on his way to Washington for a meeting of the joint Russian-American commission on technical and economic co-operation which he chairs with the Vice-President, Mr Al Gore. He will also have talks with President Clinton.
President Yeltsin dismissed his chief of staff yesterday and replaced him with a deputy, a Kremlin spokesman said. He said Mr Yeltsin had signed an order dismissing Mr Nikolai Bordyuzha from his posts as chief of staff and secretary of the Security Council. He said Mr Bordyuzha's former deputy, Mr Alexander Voloshin, would become the new chief of staff.
