BOMB BLAST IN NYANYA, ABUJA.

More than 70 dead and at least 124 injured in huge bus stop blast in Nigerian capital with Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram suspected

• The blast ripped through the crowded bus station in Abuja this morning, with witness describing scenes of carnage
• Attack linked to al-Qaeda followers, Boko Haram, who are trying to carve out an Islamic state in north east Nigeria
• Police confirm 71 dead and at least 124 wounded in the terror attack, the first in the capital for two years
• The country's president, Goodluck Jonathan, has visited the scene and insisted: 'We will get over it'

Police in Nigeria say the bombing of a bus station in the country's capital, Abuja, has killed 71 people and wounded at least 124.

Witnesses described a horrific blood-strewn scene after a huge blast in the busy bus terminal about 10 miles from the city centre destroyed 16 coaches and 24 minibuses this morning.

Islamist militant group Boko Haram are suspected of carrying out what is the first attack in the Nigerian capital for two years.

Rescue workers collect the bodies of victims after a blast rocked a bus station in Abuja, Nigeria this morning

President Jonathan and his Service Chiefs just visited victims of the Nyanya Motor Park bombing at the Asokoro General Hospital in Abuja.

The bomb went off when the bus station, roughly 10 miles from the capital, was crowded with workers starting their morning commute

Mimi Daniels, who works in Abuja, said: 'I was waiting to get on a bus when I heard a deafening explosion then saw smoke. 

People were running around in panic.'

Another witness, Kingsley Ajimobi, added: 'More than two buses carrying workers were cut up by the blast. I saw many people in the bus dead, and many were injured.'

 

Civil servant Ben Nwachukw said: 'I can't count the number of people that died. They took them in open vehicles. People were running and there was confusion.'

The blast ripped a four-foot deep hole in the ground and destroyed more than 30 vehicles, causing secondary explosions as fuel tanks went up in smoke.

Victims families and witnesses were left devastated after the attack, the first in Nigeria's capital for two years

Bodies had to be piled onto the backs of trucks as emergency services struggled to deal with the number of casualties

Witnesses stand around victims of the explosion. The number of dead has been estimated at 71 but the death toll could still rise

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but suspicion is likely to fall on Islamist militant group Boko Haram, which has waged an increasingly bloody insurgency in the country's North East.

Suspected militants killed at least 60 people in an attack on a village late last week and eight people were killed in another recent attack at a teacher training college.

Visiting the scene, President Goodluck Jonathan denounced 'the activities of those who are trying to move our country backwards'.

'We will get over it... The issue of Boko Haram is temporary' he said, and called on Nigerians to be more vigilant in the face of terrorist activity.

Boko Haram, which means 'Western education is sinful', is modelled on the Taliban movement in Afghanistan and has forged ties with al-Qaeda.

The group want to carve an Islamic state out of Nigeria and have concentrated their onslaught in the North East in the past year. The last time terrorists struck in Abuja was in April 2012, when suicide bombers targeted the offices of newspaper This Day.

Police look through the debris after officials confirmed 71 had been killed in the explosion and around 124 injured

Witnesses said the explosion sparked scenes of chaos in the busy bus station, with two buses hit directly by the blast and waiting passengers showered in debris