Suspected Islamic State suicide bombers kill 41 at Istanbul airport

* 47 Chinese citizens evacuated, some with minor injuries, a few still trapped

* Suicide bombers target Turkey's biggest airport

* No immediate claim of responsibility for attack

An injured woman covers her face as she is carried by paramedics into ambulance at Istanbul Ataturk airport, Turkey, following a blast June 28, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

ISTANBUL - Three suicide bombers opened fire then blew themselves up in Istanbul's main international airport on Tuesday, killing 41 people and wounding close to 150 in what Turkey's prime minister said appeared to have been an attack by Islamic State militants.

One attacker opened fire in the departures hall with an automatic rifle, sending passengers diving for cover and trying to flee, before all three blew themselves up in or around the arrivals hall a floor below, witnesses and officials said.

The attack on Europe's third-busiest airport is one of the deadliest in a series of suicide bombings in Turkey, which is struggling to contain the spillover from neighboring Syria's civil war and battling an insurgency by Kurdish militants in its southeast.

Police fired shots to try to stop two of the attackers just before they reached a security checkpoint at the arrivals hall, but they detonated their explosives, a Turkish official said.

"It became clear with this incident again that terrorism is a global threat. This attack, targeting innocent people is a vile, planned terrorist act," Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told reporters at the airport.

"There is initial evidence that each of the three suicide bombers blew themselves up after opening fire," he said, adding that they had come to the airport by taxi and that preliminary findings pointed to Islamic State responsibility.

The vast majority of those killed were Turkish nationals but foreigners were also among the dead, the official said.

"There was a huge explosion, extremely loud. The roof came down. Inside the airport it is terrible, you can't recognize it, the damage is big," said Ali Tekin, who was at the arrivals hall waiting for a guest when the attack took place.

A woman named Duygu, who was at passport control having just arrived from Germany, said she threw herself onto the floor with the sound of the explosion. Several witnesses also reported hearing gunfire shortly before the attacks.

"Everyone started running away. Everywhere was covered with blood and body parts. I saw bullet holes on the doors," she said outside the airport.

Almost seven hours after the attack, which started around 9:50 p.m., no group had claimed responsibility.

The attack bore similarities to a suicide bombing by Islamic State militants at Brussels airport in March which killed 16 people. A coordinated attack also targeted a rush-hour metro train, killing a further 16 people in the Belgian capital.