At least 13 people are reported to have died after a blast ripped through a train station in the southern Russian city of Volgograd.<br /><br />The blast, captured on CCTV, shows a huge orange fireball filling the hall and smoke billowing out through shattered windows.<br /><br />Russia’s state Investigative Committee said a female suicide bomber blew herself up in the entrance hall of the station, just in front of a metal detector.<br /><br />President Vladimir Putin has ordered law enforcement agencies to take all possible measures to improve securiity, according to RIA news agency. Meanwhile, federal police<br />spokesman, Vladimir Kolesnikov, has said security at train stations and airports would be stepped up further.<br /><br />Two police officers who were checking the passengers are said to be among those who have died.<br /><br />Investigators in Russia have put the death toll at 13, while the regional governor says 15 people have been killed as a result of the explosion.<br /><br />Russian Health Ministry spokesman, Oleg Salagai, said as many as 42 people were wounded, with some needing to be flown to Moscow for treatment.<br /><br />This is the second deadly attack in southern Russia in three days. On December 27, a car bomb in Pyatigorsk killed three people; while on October 21 2013, a female suicide bomber also struck in Volgograd, killing seven people. <br /><br />Sunday’s attack will bolster fears of attacks by Islamist militants as Russia prepares to host the 2014 Winter Olympics. <br /><br />Volgograd lies close to Russia’s North Caucasus, a strip of mostly Muslim provinces plagued by near-daily violence. <br /><br />In a video posted online in July, Islamist insurgent leader and Chechen warlord, Doku Umarov, urged militants to use “maximum force” to prevent Russian President Vladimir Putin from staging the Olympics.<br /><br />The Games will be held in the Black Sea city of Sochi, around 690 kilometres from Volgograd, in February 2014.<br /><br />Sunday’s attack was the deadliest to strike Russia’s heartland since Islamist insurgents killed 37 people at a Moscow airport in January 2011.
