The third person killed in the Boston Marathon bombings was today named as a 23-year-old Chinese student, as it emerged the explosive devices were made from pressure cookers and cost as little as £65 to assemble.
Lu Lingzi, studying mathematics and statistics at Boston University, had gone to watch the race with two friends and was standing near the finishing line when the first blast went off.
The Chinese Consulate in New York confirmed Ms Lu’s death, and friends said she had come to the US because it was her “dream to get a better education”.
One of her companions at the race, fellow student Zhou Danling, suffered serious injuries in the blast and fell into a coma but is now said to be improving.
Tributes have been paid to the other two victims of the bombings — eight-year-old Martin Richard and restaurant manager Krystle Campbell, 29, both spectators at the marathon. The boy’s mother Denise and sister Jane, six, both suffered serious injuries.
Ms Campbell’s father William, 56, described his daughter as a “very caring, very loving person” who went to watch the race with her best friend, whose boyfriend was running.
At least 176 people were injured in the twin blasts on Monday afternoon, with a nine-year-old girl and a boy aged 10 among 17 victims still critically ill. The bombs, assembled from pressure cookers sold in discount stores and with a simple detonator, were filled with nails and ball bearings to maximise casualties.
Similar bombs have been used in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Middle East, but security experts said the Boston devices could just as easily have been assembled by a domestic extremist.
As the FBI said “pieces of black nylon which could be from a backpack” had been found at the scene, President Obama was visiting Boston today.
