Bomb kills three at Philippine bus station, 20 hurt

Manila: A bomb killed three people and wounded 20 at a canteen inside a crowded bus terminal in the southern Philippines on Friday, security officials said.

Most of the victims were eating when the crude bomb went off.

Paniares Adap, police chief in Cotabato City, said fragments of an improvised explosive device were recovered at the blast site, where a child was killed on the spot. Two others died on the way to hospital.

Twenty people, including four children, were being treated for burns and shrapnel wounds.

"We're still trying to establish the motive for the blast, but we can't discount the possibility of a terrorist attack," Adap told reporters.

Adap said there had been threats of militant attacks in Cotabato City, the political and economic hub of the Philippines' Muslim south, since last month when two people were killed when the bomb they were carrying exploded prematurely in a residential area.

Muslim militants have been fighting for decades for independence from the Philippines' largely Catholic central government.

Manila is in talks with the largest Muslim rebel group but has vowed to destroy Abu Sayyaf, the Philippines' deadliest militant group which has links to regional terrorist organisation Jemaah Islamiah.