St. Petersburg Attack Sickens 78

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia —  A gas attack in a home-supply store on one of the busiest shopping days of the year sickened scores of people Monday in an incident that police said probably was motivated by a commercial dispute or blackmail attempt.

Boxes containing timers wired to glass vials were discovered at the scene of the attack and three other stores in the same chain in Russia’s second-largest city.

Seventy-eight people sought medical care, 66 of whom were briefly hospitalized and sent home without any lasting ill effects, officials said. Police said that the store where the people were sickened had not yet opened for the day and that the victims were employees and police, Itar-Tass news agency reported. But a police spokesman said some customers had been sickened.

Officials with the Maksidom home-supply chain, which sells furnishings, home-repair material and other domestic articles, said they had received recent threats that sales would be disrupted around New Year’s, when Russians traditionally give holiday gifts.

“The first reaction is that it is one of the competitors of this store chain,” St. Petersburg Gov. Valentina Matviyenko said in televised comments.

St. Petersburg police spokesman Vyacheslav Stepchenko said the gas appeared to be methyl mercaptan, which smells like rotten cabbage. It exists naturally but also is manufactured for use in plastics and pesticides.

Employees at the branch where people were sickened told officials they heard a sharp noise, like a clap or pop, before people inside smelled an odor and began to feel ill.