Ranting Man in Wheelchair ‘Blows Himself Up’ in Arrivals Hall at Beijing Airport

  • Reports of explosion in Terminal 3 at busy airport in Chinese capital
  • Pictures posted online show man in wheelchair brandishing an object
  • Believed to be a packet of gunpowder used to make firecrackers
  • Another photo shows a wheelchair on its side in smoke-filled terminal
  • State media says man was hospitalised and nobody else injured

Daily Mail
July 21, 2013

Explosion: Photographs emerged online in the wake of the blast of a man in a wheelchair waving his arms in the air at Beijing Airport.
Explosion: Photographs emerged online in the wake of the blast of a man in a wheelchair waving his arms in the air at Beijing Airport.

A man in a wheelchair set off a home-made bomb in the arrivals hall at Beijing Airport today.

The man was initially suspected to to have died in the blast in Terminal 3 at around 6.24pm local time, but Chinese state media has now said he survived and was taken to hospital.

A photograph emerged online in the wake of the explosion showing a man in a wheelchair brandishing something in the air, along with another showing an empty wheelchair on its side in the smoke-filled arrivals hall.
The picture shows a huddled group of people crouching around someone on the floor next to the over-turned wheelchair.

Panic: Clouds of smoke filled the arrivals hall today after the man set off a home-made bomb in the busy airport.
Panic: Clouds of smoke filled the arrivals hall today after the man set off a home-made bomb in the busy airport.

The man is thought to have detonated a package of gunpowder used to make firecrackers.

Several other pictures that cropped up on Weibo – the Chinese equivalent of Twitter – showed smoke filling the air above the crowds making their way through the terminal in the capital.

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