Live news: Four dead, 38 wounded in Istanbul blast – Governor

At least six dead, 53 injured in Istiklal blast: Erdogan

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that the explosion in Istanbul’s Istiklal Street was caused by a “bomb attack,” adding that six people died in the incident.

Speaking before his departure to the G-20 summit in Indonesia on Sunday, Erdogan said the explosion was a “treacherous attack” and its perpetrators would be punished.

Another 53 were wounded, according to information he received from the Istanbul governor.

An explosion that ripped through the heart of Istanbul has left at least four people dead and 38 others wounded, according to the city governor.

The explosion – the cause of which was unknown – occurred at 4:20pm local time (13:20 GMT), Istanbul governor Ali Yerlikaya added in a tweet.

Istiklal avenue is a crowded thoroughfare popular with tourists and locals and lined by shops and restaurants.

A video posted online shows flames erupting and a loud bang, as pedestrians turn and run away.

Other footage shows ambulances, fire trucks and police at the scene. Social media users said shops were shuttered and the avenue closed down.

Al Jazeera’s Sinem Koseoglu, reporting from Istanbul, said that attacks have not taken place in Turkey for the last several years.

“The scenes we are seeing in Istanbul’s Istiklal street right now totally remind us what happened in various tourist areas of Istanbul a couple of years ago as well as [in] Turkey’s big cities, including the capital Ankara,” she said.

“These kinds of attacks have been perpetrated by mainly two organisations in the past: the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or the PKK, and ISIL (ISIS),” she said, adding that no group has yet claimed responsibility for the latest incident.

-al jazeera