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There are dramatic pictures on the front page of NRK's website - the public broadcaster reporting that one person has been killed in the blast.
I'm looking down at the explosion site from an adjacent tower hotel. The streams of ambulances remind me of the scenes from around my home on September 11 2001.
Witness Ben McPherson tells the BBC news channel that Oslo does not have natural gas pipes, although he says some people do keep cannisters in their homes.
Photos are coming in of the aftermath of the blast in Oslo. View our gallery here.
emails: Smell of ionized air lingers, this appear by the smell as if gas containers have exploded. Police and security forces have sealed off the area. Reports of damaged persons being taken away by ambulances is all over the news.
emails: My wife was caught by the glass and shockwave of the explosion. She phoned me and I was able to get into Oslo and pick her up. She is in complete shock. The police are moving people away from the area for the third time as they are concerned about the possibility of more explosions. The local TV are saying that there is a big possibility of a terror connection.
emails: It was a massive explosion, I was at least 1km away from the scene but I felt the explosive in my feet. Everyone had the same feeling. It seems the explosion got very high shock waves as it broken the mirrors at quite larger distances. Now I am near the main place and city is in panic, grief and in tears.
Back to Ben McPherson, who says he though it was thunder when he first heard the blast from his home.
"I saw on the Aftenposten website - the main newspaper here - that there were bodies spotted in the government building. This will come as a huge shock and will shatter the innocence of this country," he says.
emails: Well it's quite shocking, it seems unreal that places here would be targeted by bombs. Apparently the prime minister is in safety and unharmed according to media reports here. The areas that have been hit, such as the government HQ looks like an urban warzone, glass lies scattered all over the streets and a building is on fire, from what I can see on the television. The areas are being cordoned off by the police in fear of more bombs going off.
Public broadcaster NRK reports one fatality has been confirmed.
More from Ingunn Andersen, who says people in Norway generally feel safe and don't expect terrorist attacks to take place in their country.
There has been no confirmation that the explosion was terrorist-related.
Briton Ben McPherson, who is in Oslo with his wife, says he heard the blast from about a mile away. "It looks quite bad, the assumption is that it has to be terrorism," he tells the BBC.
Norwegian police issue an official statement confirming "a powerful explosion" has taken place in the government quarter of Oslo.
emails: The bomb went of at Youngstorget, in the central parts of Oslo. People are crying in the streets, injured people are taking care of by a huge amount of police and medical forces. People ran from the scene in panic. The police is now evacuating all people from Youngstorget. Windows are shattered up to 400m away. And you could hear the explosion 4km outside Oslo.
Immediately after the blast people ran towards the building whilst security guards tried to keep others away, saying it was too dangerous, Ingunn Andersen from Norwegian station NRK tells the BBC.
Neighbouring offices - including those housing some of Norway's leading newspapers and news agency NTB - have been evacuated, Associated Press says.
David Lea, Western Europe analyst, at Control Risks tells Reuters it is difficult to tell what has happened.
"There certainly aren't any domestic Norwegian terrorist groups although there have been some al Qaeda-linked arrests from time to time.
"They are in Afghanistan and were involved in Libya, but it's far too soon to draw any conclusions."
tweets: The blast area has been blocked off now...authorities probably trying to get a sense of the situation...
Police are not commenting on the cause of the explosion in the centre of the Norwegian capital.
Eyewitness Ole Tommy Pedersen says he saw the blast shatter almost all of the windows of the high-rise building.
"I saw three or four injured people being carried out of the building a few minutes later," he tells the Associated Press.
A cloud of smoke was sent billowing from the bottom floors, he adds.
A journalist from public radio NRK says: "I see that some windows of the VG building and the government headquarters have been broken. Some people covered with blood are lying in the street."
Welcome to our live coverage of events in the Norwegian capital Oslo, where an explosion struck this afternoon.
The blast is thought to have caused damage to the offices of Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and a number of other official buildings.
Friday 22 July 2011
BBC News - Oslo explosion
via bbc.co.uk
