Bike bomb kills 3, injures many at Yala market

Security officers examine the motorcycle-bombing scene at Pimolchai market in Muang district, Yala, on Monday morning. (Photos by Maluding Tido)

YALA: Three people died and 18 others were wounded when a motorcycle bomb exploded at a wet market in Muang district of the southern border province about 6am on Monday.

Local police said a young man parked the motorcycle near a pork stall at the Pimolchai market in Yala municipality. The woman who owned the stall told him to move the motorcycle, but he rushed away.

The woman wen over to the motorcycle to move it herself, and it exploded. She and a male customer were killed instantly.

Nineteen injured people were rushed to Yala Hospital, where one of them succumbed to injuries.

Security authorities found chopped steel rods and electronic parts near the wrecked motorcycle and estimated the bomb weighed about 20 kilogrammes.

The pork stall, many other motorcyles and stalls at the market were also wrecked.

Col Pramote Phrom-in, spokesman for the Internal Security Operations Command's southern branch, said authorities had identified a group of insurgents responsible for the bombing and were hunting for them. They were the insurgents who had been active in the local area, he said.

They continued to kill people and damage property and the local economy, trying to shake people's confidence in the government, Col Pramote said.

(Video YouTube/The Star Online)