Several Blasts Rock Manila; 11 Reported Dead

Five nearly simultaneous explosions rocked Manila today, killing at least 11 people and wounding scores more as they ripped apart a bus and a train coach and hit an airport and a park, police and radio reports said.

Edgardo Aglipay, the police chief for metropolitan Manila, said police suspected that the attacks were the work of extremist Muslim rebels.

The blast on the light-railway transport train appeared to have been the most destructive: The train’s front coach was blown apart as it pulled into the Philippine capital’s Blumentritt station at noon. At least nine people died and more than 40 were hurt.

Elsewhere, a bomb exploded in a bus inside the main terminal in Quezon City, in the greater Manila area. ABS-CBN Television reported at least one dead and severe damage to the terminal.

A third blast came near a large aviation fuel depot at Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport. At least three people were hurt, said an airport official, but the fuel depot did not explode.

A fourth bomb found near the Dusit Hotel in the Makati financial district was being defused when it went off, killing an officer, police said.

The fifth bomb exploded on a bench in a park near the U.S. Embassy, wounding at least nine people, blasting a 2-foot crater in the ground and damaging buildings some 200 yards from the embassy. The bomb apparently was not directed at the embassy itself.