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37 hurt in Lankan bus bombings

COLOMBO: Bombs exploded in two buses in Sri Lanka's southeast on Monday, injuring at least 37 people, six seriously, police and state radio said.

The first bomb exploded at a bus stand in Bibile, some 160 km (100 miles) east of the capital Colombo, injuring 29 people. Three were in serious condition, the police told Reuters.

Another bomb exploded soon after on a bus heading south from Medagama, also in Badulla district, to Monoragela.

Hospital officials in Medagama said six people were injured in the blast, three seriously.

Further details were not immediately available, but the blasts were the latest in a series involving public buses.

Some 33 people were hurt when bombs exploded in three buses last Thursday, a day before the country marked its 52nd anniversary of independence from Britain.

One of the blasts was in a Colombo suburb and another close to the capital.

The previous week one person was killed and 20 injured when a bomb exploded in a bus travelling to Colombo from the nearby district of Kurunegala.

No one has claimed responsibility for the bus blasts.

The government has in the past blamed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for a series of bombings and assassinations.

The LTTE is fighting for a separate homeland for minority Tamils in Sri Lanka's north and east since 1983. More than 55,000 people have been killed in the fighting.-Reuters