Four killed in explosion at Turkish tourist area

A blast thought to have been caused by an exploding gas canister at a Mediterranean resort in Turkey killed four people and injured at least 25 others.

Three of the dead were tourists from Russia, Norway and Hungary while the fourth victim was a Turkish man who worked a waiter in the restaurant where the explosion occurred.

It was unclear last night if the blast was an accident or caused by a bomb.

The restaurant was named by the Anatolian news agency as Dayioglu in the town of Manavgat, a popular tourist area about 60 miles east of Antalya, Turkey's largest resort area.

The blast occurred near a waterfall in the tourist area, a local official said.

Kurdish separatists, leftist and Islamist militants have all carried out bomb attacks in Turkey on military and civilian targets.

Ten days ago a bomb left in a rubbish bin at a bus station wounded at least three people in central Istanbul. Kurdish militants claimed responsibility for that blast.

Scores of soldiers and rebels of the outlawed separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) have died in clashes amid a rise in violence in the largely Kurdish south-east this year.

More than 30,000 people, mostly Kurds, have been killed in the separatist conflict since the PKK took up arms against the state in 1984 with the aim of carving out an ethnic homeland.