A double car bombing in Russian North Caucasus killed at least 12 people and injured over 100 others.

A double car bombing in Russian North Caucasus killed at least 12 people and injured over 100 others.

Officials said the first blast went off on the outskirts of the city of Makhachkala in the republic of Dagestan when a car laden with explosives was detonated near a traffic police post at 22:10 pm (1810 GMT) damaging nearby buildings and cars but causing no fatalities.

The second car bomb went off fifteen minutes later hitting policemen, rescue workers and passers-by who gathered at the scene, investigators said.

"As a result of the second blast, 12 people died including seven policemen, three employees of the region emergencies ministry's rescue service and two local residents," the Moscow-based investigators said in a statement, adding that more than 100 were injured.

But in a sign that the death toll was expected to climb, a spokeswoman for the regional emergencies ministry said that the blasts killed 13 people, while another one was considered missing.
Another 122 people were injured, and 83 were hospitalized, the emergencies ministry said.

A spokesman for investigators in Dagestan, Rasul Temirbekov, also said that the death toll might slightly go up. "It is possible. By one or two people," he told AFP.

The attacks were the deadliest militant strike for months in the troubled region.