Kiev - At least 32 people were injured Tuesday in a pair of explosions in a bank in the eastern Ukrainian city of Melitopol, Ministry of Emergency Situations officials said. The two blasts took place in a branch office of the major Ukrainian bank Sberbank.
Two men entering the bank shortly before the explosions left packages in the bank, one by the door and one near the tellers, the Interfax news agency reported citing eyewitnesses.
The men exited the bank shortly before the detonations, according to news reports.
Three of the victims - two customers and a bank worker - received serious injuries from flying debris and have been hospitalized, said Ihor Krol, an Emergency Situations Ministry spokesman.
Officials from the Zaporizhia city government appealed for donors to give blood to the city hospital, according to a Korrespondent magazine report.
Ukraine's second-largest bank Sberbank is a government-owned financial institution responsible for payment of most pensions and government salaries.
Crowds usually are heavy in Sberbank branch offices in the early days of a month, when pension and government salary pay checks are first made available.
