Pak bus blast kills 17 govt employees; 47 wounded

At least 17 people were killed and dozens wounded yesterday when a bomb exploded inside a bus in Peshawar, the main city in Pakistan's insurgency-racked northwest, officials said.

No group has claimed responsibility for the explosion, which happened as the bus carrying mainly government employees was passing through the city's crowded shopping district of Saddar.

But Pakistan has been battling a homegrown Islamist insurgency for more than a decade, with groups such as the Pakistani Taliban routinely carrying out attacks as part of their struggle to overthrow the government.

"Another injured from the bus blast has expired and the death toll is now 17," Jamil Shah, a spokesman for Peshawar's main Lady Reading Hospital, told AFP.

"A total of 47 wounded were brought to hospital and many have been discharged after first aid. Five people among the 19 injured admitted are still critical," the spokesman said.

Bomb disposal officials said a four-kilogram improvised explosive device had been planted near the bus's gas cylinder and appeared to have been detonated remotely.

"The IED was fitted with ball bearings and was planted beneath the sixth row of seats from the back," police official Abbas Majeed added.

Majeed told reporters at the scene the bus was carrying government employees from the northwestern town of Mardan to Peshawar. Rescue workers carried the injured from the blue bus on stretchers to waiting ambulances.

A survivor said the vehicle appeared to leap in the air after the explosion.

"A huge blast occurred and I felt that the bus had jumped in the air. I could only see flames and smoke in the rear of the bus. People started crying. I got an injury on my head and light wounds on the body," said Faqir Gul, 32, a shopkeeper from Charsadda district.