SAINT PETERSBURG, Dec 26: Nearly 80 people suffered coughing and breathing problems on Monday after a gas was released in one of four apparently criminal attacks on a major chain of Saint Petersburg shops, officials in Russia’s second city said.

Terrorism was not suspected, a spokesman for the Federal Security Service (FSB) said, with evidence instead pointing to a business-related criminal dispute timed to spoil sales in the commercially important pre-New Year’s holiday period.

Four huge Maksidom general hardware and household goods shops in Russia’s former imperial capital were targeted with devices consisting of boxes of gas capsules and clocks set to the current time, police said. No explosives were involved.

However, the substance, identified as the non-lethal gas merkaptan, was only released in two of the stores and caused harm in just one.

“The security services are inclined to believe this to be an act of hooliganism because so far there is no information that this could be a terrorist act,” the FSB spokesman said.

Saint Petersburg’s police department said in a statement: “According to our information, the most likely explanation is a settling of accounts between competitors.

“Maksidom’s management had on its own initiative contacted the police to tell them that they had received letters threatening to ruin their holiday sales,” the statement said.

All four Maksidom shops were evacuated and closed while police mounted an investigation. Ambulances and police could be seen positioned in snowy streets around the stores.

The gas had been identified as merkaptan, which is used to give odour to natural gas supplies ‘and in some cases this gas can cause allergic reactions’. Merkaptan, which smells of garlic or rotten eggs, can in one form be an ingredient in self-defence weapons, police said.—AFP