2 hurt as bomb explodes inside passenger bus in Surigao del Norte
SURIGAO CITY, Philippines—A bomb went off aboard a passenger bus in Claver, Surigao del Norte, around 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, the police said.
None of the 24 passengers of the Bachelor Tours unit, with body No. 365, was harmed as they had already disembarked for lunch when the bomb went off, said SPO2 Joel Verano, investigator at the Claver police.
But another police report said a passenger of another Bachelor bus parked nearby and a crew member of an eatery near the buses were injured in the blast.
“It tore off the seats at the rear portion of the bus and shattered the windows,” Verano told the Philippine Daily Inquirer by phone.
“Lives would have been lost had the bomb exploded while the passengers were still on the bus,” he said.
Earlier, Claver town administrator Ernesto Sulapas said initial reports reaching them indicated that three passengers had been fatally hit.
It was the same statement he issued media outlets in Butuan City.
“Several others who had been injured were rushed to a nearby hospital,” Sulapas said.
But Verano said only two people had been injured. They were the passenger of another Bachelor bus, which was parked near the ill-fated bus; and a restaurant crew member.
He said the victims were injured by flying pieces of shattered glasses.
Verano identified the victims as Evelyn M. Romero, a passenger; and Maximiana B. Mamba, a member of the staff of nearby Mark and Mitchie Jay Restaurant.
They sustained minor injuries and are now being treated at a hospital here, Verano said.
Verano said the bomb was probably placed in a backpack by a still unidentified perpetrator when the bus left this city at 10 a.m. for Tandag City.
Investigators, he said, were still trying to determine what type of bomb was used, including the motive of the perpetrator.
The Claver explosion aimed at Bachelor was the second bombing incident involving a subsidiary of the Bacolod-based Vallacar Transit Corp. in Mindanao this year.
Just last month, a grenade also exploded at the terminal of Vallacar’s another subsidiary—Weena Bus—in Cotabato City, but no one was injured.
In November 2014, an improvised bomb was also recovered inside a unit of the Bachelor in Nabunturan, Compostela Valley. With a report from Franklin Caliguid, Inquirer Mindanao
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