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• Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says at least six people have been killed and dozens injured in a “heinous attack”, after an explosion hit Istanbul’s busy Istiklal thoroughfare.
• Vice President Fuat Oktay later updated the wounded toll to 81, with two in serious condition, and also said it appeared to be a “terrorist attack”.

• A video posted online showed flames erupting and a loud bang, as pedestrians turned and ran away.
• Other footage showed ambulances, fire trucks and police at the scene. Social media users said shops were shuttered and the avenue closed down.

A witness, speaking to Aljeeera, has said that she thought the exploding sound came from a construction site when she heard it.

The explosion occurred next to a Mango clothing store on Istiklal.

“I was at Mango two hours beforehand. Then we went to [the adjacent neighborhood of] Cihangir and heard the sound of an explosion while eating and did not want to think that it was a bomb,” Asena Hayal told Al Jazeera.

“We thought something fell from a construction site but then realized there is no construction on Sundays. Later the news arrived indicating that it was an explosion,” Hayal added.

Some of the wounded in the blast were taken to the Okmeydani state hospital in the neighbouring district of Sisli, according to news reports.

At 8pm, there were numerous police officers on guard at the entrance to the hospital’s emergency room, but they declined to provide any information, according to an Al Jazeera correspondent.

As of 8:45pm, all entrances to Istiklal Avenue were blocked off by police as an investigation into the explosion is ongoing.

There were large numbers of police at the main entrance to the avenue and armored vehicles parked in nearby Taksim Square. The normally buzzing backstreets around Istiklal were eerily silent and empty. Many bars, restaurants, and cafes had closed early.

Turkish Vice-President Fuat Oktay has said that six people were killed in the explosion in Istanbul – four of them at the scene – and 81 others were injured, with two in critical condition.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that he is “deeply saddened” by the news of the explosion in Turkey, and has extended condolences to the victims and wished a speedy recovery to the injured.

“The pain of the friendly Turkish people is our pain,” Zelenkskyy added in a tweet.

Al Jazeera’s Sinem Koseoglu, reporting from Istiklal avenue, said that three suspects were reportedly involved in the blast.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan “mentioned that the main suspect [in the incident] is a female,” Koseoglu said, adding that officials believe that she is a member of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Koseoglu said the suspect reportedly dropped a bag of explosives in the middle of the street packed with civilians, and it detonated a few minutes after she left.

“I learned from my sources that the other two suspects are two very young men who were born after 2000,” she also said.

A witness to the explosion in Istanbul’s Istiklal avenue spoke to the AFP news agency about the moments of panic during the incident.

“I was 50-55 metres [164-180 feet] away. Suddenly there was the noise of an explosion. I saw three or four people on the ground,” witness Cemal Denizci, 57, said.

“People were running in panic. The noise was huge. There was black smoke,” he said.

Sunday’s blast is the first such incident in Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city, in several years.

Between 2015 and 2017, Turkey was hit by a string of deadly bombings by ISIL (ISIS) and outlawed Kurdish groups.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has condemned the explosion on Istanbul’s Istiklal street.

“I have learned with deep anguish about the explosion at Istiklal Avenue in the heart of Istanbul,” Sharif said on Twitter.

“Government and the people of Pakistan express deepest condolences to the brotherly people of Turkiye at the loss of precious lives and send prayers for the speedy recovery of the injured.”

Murat Aslan, a security analyst, told Al Jazeera that the place where the attack took place in Istanbul is a highly crowded civilian area with maximum security precautions.

“The police in general are on the highest level in this area,” he said.

“If you have a bag and look like a suspected individual, police may stop you as there are many police officers around there,” he said.

“But if there is no clue that you are a terrorist … nobody will stop you, because this is a civilian street and police would not stop everybody and check the bags …

“There are a lot of security cameras in the area,” Aslan noted. “I think the police will identify exactly who did this and how he or she did this if it is a terror attack.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that the explosion in Istanbul’s Istiklal street was caused by a “bomb attack”, adding that six people died in the incident.

Speaking before his departure to the Group of 20 (G20) summit in Indonesia on Sunday, Erdogan said the explosion was a “treacherous attack” and its perpetrators would be punished.

Another 53 were wounded, according to information Erdogan received from the Istanbul governor.