Six people have been killed and 81 others wounded after an explosion rocked a busy pedestrian street in central Istanbul in what Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has called a bomb attack that "smells like terrorism".
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Ambulances raced to the scene on the packed Istiklal Avenue, which police had quickly cordoned off on Sunday.
The area, in the Beyoglu district of Turkey's largest city, had been crowded as usual at the weekend with shoppers, tourists and families.
Video footage obtained by Reuters showed the moment the blast occurred in the centre of the avenue, sending debris into the air and leaving several people lying on the ground.
Hours after the explosion, Vice President Fuat Oktay visited the site to give the latest death and injury toll and promised to resolve the matter "very soon".
Authorities later said a government ministry worker and his daughter were among the dead.
Five people were in intensive care in hospital, two of them in a critical condition.
Nobody has claimed responsibility for the blast.
Istanbul and other Turkish cities have been targeted in the past by Kurdish separatists, Islamist militants and other groups.
"Efforts to defeat Turkey and the Turkish people through terrorism will fail today just as they did yesterday and as they will tomorrow," Erdogan told a news conference before flying to Indonesia for a summit of the Group of 20 (G20) summit.
"Our people can rest assured that the culprits... will be punished as they deserve.
"It would be wrong to say this is undoubtedly a terrorist attack but the initial developments and initial intelligence from my governor is that it smells like terrorism," he said.
Reuters footage showed people tending to victims after the blast and later, investigators collecting material from the avenue, which is lined with shops and restaurants.
"When I heard the explosion, I was petrified. People froze, looking at each other. Then people started running away. What else can you do," said Mehmet Akus, 45, a restaurant worker on Istiklal.
"My relatives called me. They know I work on Istiklal. I reassured them," he told Reuters.
A helicopter flew above the scene and a number of ambulances were parked in nearby Taksim Square.
The Turkish Red Crescent said blood was transferred to nearby hospitals.
If confirmed, it would be the first major bomb blast in Istanbul in several years.
Twin bombings outside an Istanbul soccer stadium in December 2016 killed 38 people and wounded 155 in an attack claimed by an offshoot of the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the European Union and the United States.
Australian Associated Press
