DHAKA: Ten people including many high school students were killed when a bomb exploded aboard a bus in the southern Philippines on Tuesday.

Military spokesmen said, reports The Straits Times.

The bus operated by the Rural Transit company was traveling through the town of Maramag in the strife-torn island of Mindanao when the bomb went off, said regional spokesman Major Christian Uy.

The blast also injured at least 16 people.

Many of the victims were high school students who had just boarded the bus as it passed a school in the town, said Lieutenant Norman Tagnos, spokesman for a local infantry brigade. The bomb went off almost immediately after the students got on.

Tagnos said extortion was being eyed as the likely motive.

The bombing was the latest in a series of attacks on the bus company. Last month a bomb exploded aboard a Rural Transit bus in Mindanao, leaving four people injured.

Ten people were killed when a bomb exploded aboard a bus operated by the same company on Mindanao in 2010.

BDST: 2015 HRS, DEC 09, 2014