Sri Lanka bus blast kills 25 as truce scrapped

COLOMBO (Reuters) - A roadside bomb tore through a Sri Lankan bus killing 24 people and wounding dozens on Wednesday, officials said, as a six-year ceasefire between the government and Tamil Tiger rebels formally expires.

The Ministry of Defence said a large number of schoolchildren were on the bus at the time of the blast in the central district of Moneragala, around 150 miles east of the capital Colombo.

However hospital officials said they were treating only four children for minor injuries, and that no children were killed.

Schools in the surrounding province of Uva were temporarily closed following the attack, which the military blamed on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

A second blast targeted an army armored personnel carrier 12 miles south of the first attack, wounding three soldiers, the military said.

The bus attack, in the town of Buttala, was the latest in a series of roadside bomb attacks blamed on the rebels, who are fighting to create an independent state in the island's north and east.

"Twenty-four people are dead and 64 are wounded," said military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara. "They are all civilians."

"The terrorists were desperate in that area and are now targeting civilians," Nanayakkara said.