A lunchtime bomb blast at a fast food restaurant in the Chilean capital of Santiago has injured eight people.

The device went off in a small shopping area next to the Escuela Militar station in an affluent residential and shopping district.

It is the second such attack in a couple of months. No one was hurt in the first in July which was on an empty metro carriage.

Fire chief Ivo Zuvic Garcia described the injuries:

“Those who’ve been injured are suffering from different (kinds) of injuries. Most of them from some type of hearing trauma but three people had shrapnel wounds and some have open fractures and one of them also lost several of her fingers.”

No one has claimed responsibility but the government says it intends to invoke controversial anti-terrorism laws which were first passed during the Pinochet dictatorship era.

“This grave episode requires that the country acts with strength and applies the most serious sanctions,” said Interior Minister Rodrigo Peñailillo.

The attack comes as Chile prepares to mark the 41st anniversary of the 1973 coup that removed the socialist president Salvador Allende. The event still divideds the country and its commemoration is traditionally a time of protests.