By Amantha Perera and Thushara Dasanayaka

Eighteen bystanders were injured when a powerful parcel bomb ripped apart an empty passenger bus in Mount Lavinia yesterday morning.

Vigilant commuters prevented high deaths and casualties in the fifth attack targeting a bus since January 16, when the bomb exploded around 10.55 am in the rear section of the bus which had been emptied of people.

Attentive passengers had earlier alerted the conductor of the bus of an unattended bag, kept under a seat on the driver’s side of the bus near the rear. It was traveling from Moratuwa to Colombo when the discovery was made.

“Once we realised that there was a bag and no owner, I asked the driver to stop, and told everybody to get off,” Ajith Peiris who was a traveling in the bus said. “We asked people to move  away from the parked bus and called 911 also,” Peiris who works in the Moratuwa municipal council said.

“The presence of the parcel was realised just before the Mount Lavinia Junction near the colour lights. The conductor was in front and a passenger told him,” Mervin Silva another passenger said. The conductor had thereafter inquired whether the mystery bag belonged to anyone but none of the passengers had claimed the bag. The female passenger who had first noticed the bag had then proceeded to get off. “The driver took the bus to the bus-stand at the junction and parked it just after the stand,” Silva said.  He said that the explosion took place less than 10 minutes after the bus was stopped and while the driver and the conductor waited for the Police to arrive.

The bomb had been inside a black briefcase like bag on the third seat from the rear according to the conductor of the bus Samptah Silva and it had been placed under the seat. The location of the explosion, just above the rear wheels corresponded with the location of the bag he said.

The bus bearing registration number WP NT-5665 had caught fire soon after the explosion. Damages to the vehicle were far greater than in the Dambulla blast and it had been reduced to a charred tin hulk. The rear of the bus, which took the bulk of the blast, was ripped open with metal sheeting on the roof pointing skywards. Parts of the roof had hit the electricity wires overhead and the area suffered a power interruption soon after the blast. Bystanders recovered the rear number plate of the bus from about 20 meters away after the blast.

Most of the injured were receiving treatment for shock. Ten males and seven females were injured in the attack along with an eighteen-month-old infant who was treated for shock at the Kalubowila Hospital.

Windows in buildings near the blast had been shattered and a motorcycle near the bus too had been severely damaged.

The government blamed the attack on the Tigers and said that it was another attempt at targeting civilians. “However, the terrorists’ beastly intention to commit carnage against civilians has been foiled due to the vigilance of the civilians themselves,” the Defence Ministry said.