Sri Lanka: 10 killed in bus blast

A bomb tore through a passenger bus in southern Sri Lanka today, killing at least 10 people and wounding dozens, police said, a day after six people died in a similar bus blast near the capital.

The blast occurred in Meetiyagoda, some 95km (59 miles) south of the capital, Colombo, said Jayantha Wickramaratne, a senior police official.

He said at least 40 others were wounded in the bombing.

Police arrested 10 people for questioning overnight over yesterday’s bus bomb near the Sri Lankan capital killed six.

Authorities strongly suspect separatist Tamil rebels in the blast, the Sri Lankan Defence Ministry said.

It occurred on a busy road in Nittambuwa town, 25 miles north-east of Colombo. Thirty more passengers were wounded in the blast.

No formal charges have been lodged against any of the detainees, who are still being questioned, he said.

Earlier today, suspected Tamil Tiger insurgents triggered three roadside bombs across Sri Lanka's volatile, killing four soldiers and a civilian, the military said.

Three soldiers and a civilian were killed when a bomb exploded next to a privately owned truck transporting soldiers, who were on leave, and some civilians in the northern district of Vavuniya, 210km north of the capital Colombo, military spokesman, Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe, said.

Also today, two separate blasts in northern Jaffna peninsula killed one soldier and injured two civilians, the Defence Ministry’s media centre said on its website.

Yesterday’s bomb came two days after the rebels warned the government of “serious repercussions” after an air force bombing allegedly killed 16 ethnic Tamil civilians, including eight children, in the north-western Mannar district. The military said it targeted only rebel positions in the air strike on Tuesday.

Sri Lanka has recently experienced a sharp rise in violence; more than 3,600 fighters and civilians were killed in renewed fighting in 2006, according to Defence Ministry.