Police say too early to say if Makati blast terror-related

MANILA (AP) - Police are not saying if a powerful blast that rocked a crowded shopping mall in Manila's financial district Friday and killed eight people was the work of terrorists.

Initial reports had suggested a cooking gas tank in a mall restaurant was to blame, but Metropolitan Manila police chief Geary Barias later said the blast occurred at the entrance of the mall and that its cause remained under investigation.

"It's too early to say if it's terrorism related," Barias said.

In the past, Al-Qaida-linked militants who have waged a yearslong bloody bombing campaign in the southern Philippines have targeted Manila.

The explosion caused extensive damage throughout the Glorietta 2 shopping complex in Makati, toppling roofs across the floors and destroying several walls and sending debris crashing on cars outside.

At least four people died and as many as 54 were wounded, police said.

Witnesses told radio stations they saw bloodied people being helped out of the restaurant and carried away in ambulances. An Associated Press photographer saw two bodies covered with blankets.

"One man who was in front of me was already dead. There was a child but we don't know where the child is now," said witness Dennis Inigo, who was shopping at the time of the blast. "The man's wife was with me a while ago, and her leg was shattered."

He said people inside the mall scampered toward the exits when the blast shook.

"Many people were falling on top of each other," he said. "It was loud, and then it became dusty.

"One of my companions is dead, he is under the stairs. We all work for a call center," he said.

In 2004, Abu Sayyaf militants, notorious for kidnappings and beheadings, blew up a passenger ferry in Manila Bay, killing 116 people in the country's worst terrorist attack.