WORLD
Tourist bus explodes in Dandenongs
Baku, January 9 (AZERTAC). As many as 30 young Victorian schoolchildren were on a tourist bus before an explosion "like a cannon" blast. A CFA spokeswoman in Victoria said there were 25 to 30 school children, aged between 7 and 12, on the tourist coach with staff. "Someone smelt smoke and they got off the bus," she said. No-one was injured in the blast and fire just before noon at the Grants Picnic Ground at Sherbrooke in the Dandenongs, east of Melbourne. The fire was underneath the bus, which was parked at the time, and the CFA is now investigating the incident. Witness Melissa Dickson said she got the fright of her life when the she heard the noise while walking in the Dandenongs. "It was horrendously loud - it was like a war cannon had gone off," she said. "There were flames and then this really thick smoke." She said then there were sounds of police cars and fire trucks with some people thinking it was an evacuation siren. It took CFA crews about 20 minutes to bring the fire under control.