At least six people were killed and 75 wounded in a blast that shook a commercial quarter of the Sri Lankan capital on Friday, doctors and the military said.

"Six people killed from the explosion," said military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara. "The target was a police bus and a motorbike had crashed into the police bus."

Doctor Hector Weerasinghe, director of the National Hospital in Colombo, said 75 people had been admitted with blast injuries.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.