A suspected car bomb ripped through a crowded entertainment spot in Nigeria’s northern city of Kano on Sunday, witnesses said.

The blast on a busy road lined with bars in the predominantly Christian area of Sabon Giri, could be heard several kilometres (miles) away, locals said.

Early reports said no fewer than 70 people died in the explosion, but the police said four persons were killed.

Kano police spokesman Musa Majiya said it was too early to say if the blast in the Sabon Gari or “foreign quarter” of the North’s biggest city had caused any casualties.

But witness Abdul Dafar, who lives a block away, said he saw at least four dead bodies after the explosion.

“I heard a loud blast. And there was a lot of smoke. Soldiers came in to cordon off the place and ambulances were rushing people to hospital,” he said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but blame is likely to fall on violent Islamist group Boko Haram, whose struggle against the Nigerian state has killed thousands over the last five years.

The militants also operate in neighboring Niger, Cameroon and Chad, and President Goodluck Jonathan described them as West Africa’s Al-Qaeda on Saturday in Paris, where regional leaders met France’s President Francois Hollande to discuss how to tackle the growing threat posed by the group.