By THE IRRAWADDY
Seven people died and one person was critically injured when an explosion ripped through a passenger-carrying pickup in Rangoon’s Insein Township early on Monday.
Police said the explosion occurred at about 2 a.m. near the offices of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Technology University. The pickup was travelling from Taikkyi Township, Rangoon Division, to Thiri Minglar Market in the city.
“It is not clear whether this was a bomb or natural gas explosion,” said a Rangoon Police Division official.
In Burma, buses and other passenger-carrying vehicles are often converted to run on cheaper natural gas. Faulty conversions sometimes lead to accidents.
Those killed in Monday’s explosion were reported to be the driver of the pickup, his assistant and five passengers.
An Insein Township resident told The Irrawaddy that the police took five hours to arrive at the scene of the blast. Bodies lay strewn in front the FAO office.
Monday’s explosion was the fourth to hit Rangoon in the past two months.
A blast ripped through a bus traveling from Insein Township to downtown Rangoon, near the University of Rangoon, in early September. The same month, a bomb exploded at Tamwe Township’s police station, and an explosive device went off near City Hall.
Nobody died in September’s explosions.
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