Day after Terror Attack, 87 bomb detonators found at bus station in Colombo: Police

PTI, Apr 22, 2019, 4:56 PM IST

Colombo: As many as 87 bomb detonators were found on Monday at a bus station in Colombo, police said, a day after a series of deadly blasts killed 290 people and wounded more than 500 others in the island nation. The bomb detonators were found at the Central Colombo bus station in Pettah area.

The police initially found 12 bomb detonators scattered on the ground. A further search revealed 75 more, a police statement said.

On Easter Sunday, a string of eight powerful blasts, including suicide attacks, struck churches and luxury hotels frequented by foreigners in Sri Lanka, killing 290 people, including three Indians, and shattering a decade of peace in the island nation since the end of the brutal civil war with the LTTE.

The blasts — one of the deadliest attacks in the country’s history — targeted St Anthony’s Church in Colombo, St Sebastian’s Church in the western coastal town of Negombo and Zion Church in the eastern town of Batticaloa at around 8.45 a.m. (local time) as the Easter Sunday mass were in progress. Explosions were also reported from three five-star hotels – the Shangri-La, the Cinnamon Grand and the Kingsbury in Colombo.