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ANKARA, Turkey (CNN) -- Turkish police Tuesday defused a bomb inside a vehicle in a multi-level parking lot that would have affected a nearly two-mile (three-kilometer) radius, authorities said.
The truck carries the vehicle after dogs discovered it in a parking garage, seen in the background, in Ankara.
The explosives contained 660 pounds (300 kilograms) of TNT, police said.
Police dogs sniffed out the explosives packed into a stolen minivan in the Ankara parking lot, police said, and the parking lot and surrounding buildings were evacuated while bomb squad officers worked to defuse the bomb.
Inside the vehicle, police also found at least one working cell phone, and promptly had all cell phone reception in the area blocked. Terrorists often use cell phones to remotely detonate bombs.
"We avoided a disaster," said Ankara province Gov. Kemal Onal. 
Watch police secure the area »
The vehicle had been reported stolen in Istanbul, police said. Its license plate belonged to another vehicle that had been stolen in Ankara.
Onal said it was the largest amount of explosives ever found in Turkey.
Police told CNN that the bomb was similar to those used in the November 2003 bombings in Istanbul of the London-based HSBC bank, the British consulate and two synagogues.
More than 60 people were killed in those attacks. E-mail to a friend 
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