Mizzima News

New Delhi - Seven people were killed and another severely injured when a blast ripped through a passenger bus in Burma's former capital city of Rangoon on early Monday morning, local police said.

The Insein police station said the blast occurred at about 2:00 a.m. (local time) on a passenger bus, a light Hylux truck, in front of Yangon Technology University, previously known as Rangoon Institute of Technology. The bus was traveling from Taik Gyi town in Rangoon Division to Thiri Mingalar market in the former capital.

"The explosion originated from the gas tank of the bus. ...Seven died, the other severely injured," a police officer at Insein police station told Mizzima.

While it is not immediately known where the injured person and the bodies of the seven dead were taken, the police officer said the duty officer of the station, who heard the explosion, has gone to the Rangoon General Hospital.

But the hospital, when contacted by Mizzima, said they have not received any of the bodies or any injured person as yet.

In Rangoon, most buses and other passenger carrying vehicles have been converted to run on Compressed Natural Gas or CNG as opposed to petrol or diesel. But faulty conversion can lead to explosions in gas tanks.