MOSCOW – A woman blew herself up outside a busy Moscow subway station last night, killing at least 10 people and injuring more than 50, the latest in a series of suicide attacks officials have blamed on rebels fighting for Chechnya’s independence from Russia.

The attack comes just a week after two near-simultaneous plane crashes that Russian authorities say were the result of terrorist bombings.

Suicide attacks have killed hundreds throughout Russia in the past several years, with many of the bombings carried out by so-called “Black Widows” – Chechen women who have lost loved ones in Russia’s decade-old war in the mainly Muslim republic.

This is the second time Moscow’s subway system has been a target. In February, 41 people were killed when a bomb exploded on a subway car during morning rush hour.

Yesterday’s explosion took place just after 8 p.m. in a heavily trafficked area between the entrance to the Rizhskaya subway station and a nearby shopping center.

Mayor Yuri Luzhkov said the woman tried to enter the metro station but turned away after seeing two police officers stationed near the door.

“She was scared and turned and decided to destroy herself in a crowd of people,” Mr. Luzhkov said in televised remarks. He said the woman was carrying more than 2 pounds of explosives and that the bomb was packed with bolts and other metal objects.

“There was a desire to cause maximum damage,” he said.

Alexei Borodin, 29, told the Associated Press he was walking with his mother when he heard “a very powerful bang. Something flew past my head, I don’t know what it was.”

“There were people lying in the square,” he said. “There were pieces of bodies….We were walking through pieces of people.”

TV reports showed footage of a car engulfed in flames, broken windows, and bodies lying on the pavement outside the subway station. A man lying on his side reached out for help while another man, the back of his shirt drenched in blood, stood, too stunned to move. As investigators and police dogs searched the area, ambulances pushed their way through traffic ferrying the wounded.

Mr. Luzhkov said a number of children were among the wounded. Yesterday was the last day of summer holidays before school resumes in Russia and the area was certainly being frequented by families making last minute pre-school shopping trips.

Security, already tight in Moscow following last week’s attacks, was notched up further yesterday, with extra police patrols dispatched to train stations, subway stations, and airports, a spokesman for local police told the ITAR-Tass news agency.

“Police personnel have been ordered to increase their vigilance and to pay special attention to suspicious persons and activities,” the unidentified spokesman said.

Earlier yesterday, President Putin made his first extensive comments on last week’s plane crashes, which killed 90 people. Mr. Putin said that a claim of responsibility by a militant Islamic group proves a point the Kremlin has been pushing for years: that rebel fighters in Chechnya are linked with international terrorist organizations.

“It’s a fact that explosions took place on board two Russian civilian planes,” Mr. Putin said in televised comments at a news conference with President Chirac of France and Chancellor Schroeder of Germany in the southern Russian city of Sochi.

“And if a terrorist organization claimed responsibility for this, and it is linked to Al Qaeda, then this confirms a link between certain forces operating on the territory of Chechnya and international terrorism.”

Russian officials have said traces of explosives have been found in the wreckage of both planes and are investigating two Chechen women, one of whom was on each plane, whose families have not contacted authorities.

Last week, a statement published on a Islamic terrorist Web site claimed responsibility for the crashes on behalf of a group called the “Islambouli Brigades.” The veracity of the claim has not been determined and experts cast doubt on the group’s assertion that five of its followers had seized each plane before they went down.

Chechens voted Sunday in a presidential election that was part of the Kremlin’s plans to bring stability to the breakaway republic, where Russian forces have waged two bloody campaigns against separatist rebels since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Despite Moscow’s assurances that peace is returning to the region, deaths from fighting occur almost daily. Two Russian servicemen were killed and six wounded yesterday in rebel attacks and mine blasts. The election was held after Chechnya’s previous president, Akhmad Kadyrov, was killed in a bomb attack in the Chechen capital, Grozny, in May.

The Kremlin-backed candidate, Alu Alkhanov, won Sunday with 74% of the vote. Human rights groups have accused Moscow of manipulating the vote, with the International Helsinki Federation saying that “minimum international standards for holding free and fair elections do not exist in Chechnya.”

The State Department also said the election did not meet international standards and that the disqualification of a leading candidate, Malik Saidullayev, on a “mere technicality” was of particular concern.