A suicide bomber blew himself up on a bus in central Fuzhou yesterday, injuring 31 others, local police said.

The blast in the capital of east China's Fujian Province went off at 2:32 PM as the No. 5 bus pulled into the Dongjiekou bus-stop on Dongda Road, one of the city's busiest streets.

There was a deafening "big bang," said Lin Lina, a female employee working in an office building nearby.

"Thick smoke rose into the sky, and we couldn't see or tell what was happening," Lin said.

Even from her office on the tenth floor, Lin said there was a strong smell of sulfur.

Eventually the smoke cleared to reveal the bus on the street below with its windows blown out.

"The passengers, injured and shocked, were struggling to get out of the bus," Lin said.

The shockwave from the homemade explosive was so huge that the windows of a nearby store shattered, according to sohu.com, a news and information website.

Police later said the explosion came from a second-row seat on the right-hand side of the bus.

The suspected bomber, Huang Maojin, died on the spot.

Huang, 42, was a farmer from Fujian's Gutian County.

According to a suicide note found by police, he had been suffering from lung cancer for about two years.

In the letter, Huang said he had a dispute with one of his neighbors in 2002. He claimed he had been unfairly treated by the local public security department and was imprisoned until end 2003.

The imprisonment delayed treatment of his illness, he claimed.

Huang's family was heavily in debt and he was unable to send his children to school, the letter said.

Police are still investigating the case.

(China Daily August 9, 2005)