June 13 (UPI) — An engineering professor at a prestigious university in South Korea was injured after being burned by a pressure-cooker bomb found in a package left outside his lab room.
The Yonsei University professor had found the box at the door of a fourth-floor laboratory on Tuesday morning, Yonhap reported.
The anti-personnel explosive inside the container partly detonated as the faculty member began to unwrap the device.
The man identified only by his surname Kim suffered second-degree burns on his right hand, and both first- and second-degree burns on his left hand, the right side of his face and neck and his right ear, according to a spokesman at nearby Severance Hospital in Seoul.
The explosion prompted an evacuation. An investigative team of more than 70 police officers and forensic scientists were dispatched to the site.
Large nails that filled the device did not scatter outward because the explosive did not completely detonate.
South Korean news service Money Today reported the bomb was contained in a tumbler, which was connected to a triggering device that operated on a battery.
Dozens of nails were found directly below, according to the report.
A police spokesman said the nails “did not pop out of the box” and an incomplete chemical explosion caused the victim’s burns.
A second police officer said the bomb was similar to the pressure-cooker bomb used in the April 2013 Boston Marathon bombings.
Kim, who specializes in mechanical engineering at Yonsei, has several graduate students assigned to his lab.
A list of their names was blocked online following the incident.
Police interviewed nine students, but no suspects were identified on Tuesday.
