Seven people were wounded when an explosion targeted a bus carrying prison personnel in the Turkish coastal province of Izmir on Thursday, and authorities were investigating a possible terrorist attack, the local mayor said.
The bus was hit as it passed a garbage container at around 7:40 a.m, Levent Piristina, the mayor of Izmir's Buca district, said on Twitter.
Photographs he posted on social media showed its windows blown out and its windscreen shattered. The force of the blast appeared to have blown out some of the bus' panels, and the nearby street was littered with debris.
"We are getting information from police sources and they are focusing on the possibility of a terrorist attack," he said.
Izmir governor Erol Ayyildiz said one person was hospitalized but none of the injuries were life threatening,
Both state-run TRT Haber and private broadcaster Dogan news agency said the explosion was caused by a bomb placed in the garbage container that exploded when the shuttle bus passed.
No one immediately claimed responsibility. Both Kurdish and ISIS militants have carried out suicide and bomb attacks in major Turkish cities in recent years.
