NARATHIWAT: Authorities cordoned off the area around a car bomb explosion near a police base in Sungai Kolok district of this deep South province after an explosion on Saturday night. No casualties were reported.
The blast occurred at Orakan intersection near a railway track and the 9313 ad hoc police base at about 8pm.
The bomb was placed in a car that was parked at the intersection as rain fell. The driver of the car hurriedly got out of the vehicle, jumped onto a motorcycle that was waiting beside the car and left the scene a few minutes before the blast.
After the explosion, authorities found debris of the car scattered around a radius of about 100 metres, including the vehicle's licence plates.
Authorities closed off the area pending examination by a bomb squad and forensic police.
Later on Sunday police found a cooking gas cylinder weighing about 10 kilogrammes at the scene. They assumed that the cylinder was another timebomb placed in the car but it did not go off.
The yellow Toyota car was registered in the southern border province of Songkhla and police were checking its record.
The car explosion happened about 40 metres from the police base, where eight spent shells of a 9mm pistol were found.
Shots were fired at the base just as the car containing the bomb was parked. A pipe bomb was also thrown to create a distraction during the escape of the bombers, police said.
Authorities assumed that the attacks were meant primarily to create a sense of alarm, rather than cause casualties, because the car bomb was not detonated in a crowded area.