Pipe Bomb Blast In East Belfast

A pipe bomb has exploded in east Belfast.

The explosion went off at an empty house in Kenilworth Place, off the Newtownards Road, at around 8.30pm last night.

Community worker Jim Wilson told the BBC: "It's just another fact of living in an interface that these things happen.

"But they were pretty angry that an individual house had been selected, for whatever reason, for someone to plant a device like that, because my young grandson lives three or four doors down and there's young children play in this area on a regular basis.

"If that had exploded if any of them children were about... God knows what would have happened."

Ulster Unionist MLA Michael Copeland said: "This is unnerving, particularly for children. It does spook people. It adds to the general feeling that things are not all the way they should be."

(GK)