Two bank robbers killed trying to blow open safe

Two would-be bank robbers were killed when they used too much dynamite to crack open a cash machine, blowing themselves up and demolishing half the bank in a Belgian town.

Police Saturday found the victims - one bearing Kosovo identification papers - amid rubble of the bank in the town of Dinant, 90 kilometres southeast of Brussels.

The police were called to the Record Bank at 3.20 in the morning after residents were startled by the huge blast that wrecked a large section of the building.



They found one of the would-be robbers immediately. He died shortly after from head injuries. The second was not found until Saturday afternoon when firemen had cleared much of the rubble.

The local prosecutor's office said large quantities of dynamite were found at the site - "far" too much for just cracking open the cash dispenser. The entire building would now have to be demolished.

Police said they believed a third would-be robber escaped, and that the same group had probably been responsible for an earlier attempted break-in at a nearby post office.