A bomb blast hit central Oslo, shattering windows at the Prime Minister’s office and nearby buildings and killing at least one person. Several people were injured and seven are now being treated at Oslo University Hospital, spokesman Jo Heldaas said by phone today. Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg is safe, spokesman Oeivind Oestang said by phone.
“There have been one or two powerful explosions in the government quarter in Oslo,” police said in a statement. “Police are urging people to stay away from the center of the city and limit their use of mobile phones.”
The blast was reported at 3:26 p.m. local time.
Police in Norway arrested three terrorist suspects last year with possible ties to al-Qaeda.
Today’s bombing marks the first time Oslo has encountered such an attack. The krone lost as much as 1 percent against the dollar and was trading 0.4 percent lower at 5 p.m. local time. Against the euro, the krone was little changed at 7.7875 after losing as much as 0.4 percent.
The benchmark OBX stock index lost as much as 0.4 percent before trading little changed at 391.9.
According police statement, Eirik Borg, a back office worker at Fearnley Fonds based near the scene, said he saw smoke billowing from the government quarter after hearing the blast. “We felt the impact very hard throughout the building,” Borg said in a phone interview.“All the windows were breaking and we actually thought lightening hit our roof.
From our terrace, we saw white smoke and now every news station in Norway is covering this.” The country’s Ministry of Petroleum has suffered “massive damage” as a consequence of the blast, spokesman Haakon Smith- Isaksen said by phone. Norway is the world’s seventh-largest oil exporter. “Many people were at work, some had just started to leave,” he said.