Blast in Philippine bus terminal kills six

MANILA (Reuters) - A powerful blast ripped through a bus at a terminal in the troubled southern Philippines on Monday, killing six people and injuring 27 others, army and police said.

Cesario Darantinan, police chief in Davao del Sur province on Mindanao, said the bus was waiting for passengers at a terminal in the town of Digos when an explosive device went off inside the vehicle.

"It could have been a crude bomb that was set off remotely," Darantinan said. "The explosion was so powerful that the bus was almost broken into two."

Police initially reported seven people were killed but later revised the toll to four killed on the spot and two who died in hospital. The military also confirmed six people were killed.

Twenty-seven people were wounded, Lieutenant-Colonel Lyndon Paniza, commander of an army battalion in the area, told reporters, adding that troops were checking hospitals in the vicinity to verify if there were any more victims.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, the second such incident since July this year.

Three people were killed and 25 were wounded when a crude bomb exploded inside a bus in the same town on July 24.

Darantinan said the owners and managers of a local bus firm operating in the area had been receiving threats after they had turned down extortion attempts by a criminal gang known as "al Khobar".

(Reporting by Manny Mogato; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Jeremy Laurence)