Nepal ambush

A landmine exploded under a packed bus in southern Nepal yesterday, killing 38 passengers and wounding 72 in one of the worst attacks on civilians since a Maoist rebellion erupted in 1996.

The rebels, who are fighting to topple the monarchy and establish one-party communist rule in the poor Himalayan kingdom, are not generally known to target civilians, but army officers said they were to blame.

"The bus ran over a landmine planted by the terrorists," an army officer said, referring to the Maoists. The government brands the rebels as terrorists.

"The place is littered with blood, limbs are scattered around the site. We have got 38 bodies so far. Many women and children have been killed," he said by phone from the area.

The explosion took place by the side of a river in Madi village in the Maoist stronghold of Chitwan district, about 150 kilometres south of Kathmandu, they said.

Some of the badly wounded were evacuated by helicopter to Kathmandu and the others treated at a local hospital. "Security has been stepped up in the area and an extensive search for the terrorists has been launched," an army official said.

The commuter bus was packed with villagers, with many travelling on its roof, going to work or to local markets when it was hit, residents said.

A Reuters photographer who visited the site eight hours after the blast saw dismembered bodies, many of them of women and children, lined up on one side of the dusty road.

"It's a horrible sight here," he said. "Headless bodies are lined up, stunned relatives are struggling to identify their kin. There are blood stains still on the road.

Witnesses said the blast hurled the bus several feet in the air. There was a deep crater on the road. An army officer at the site said rebels detonated the mine with a remote control device from the top of a tree some 250 metres away.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility from the rebels.

About 12,000 people have been killed in the nine-year insurgency which has plunged Nepal into turmoil, ravaged its aid- and tourism-dependent economy and forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes in the countryside.

The country has also been hit by a political crisis after King Gyanendra fired the government and took power in February, saying politicians had failed to tackle the Maoists.

A human rights group condemned yesterday's attack and called on the United Nations to investigate it.

New Delhi-based Asian Centre for Human Rights said the attack was an act of "terrorism and crimes against humanity".

"International humanitarian law... prohibits such wilful killing and mass murder committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population," the group said in a statement.