China bank bomb injures 39, 6 seriously

A petrol bomb set off on Friday by a disgruntled former employee at a rural bank in a Tibetan region of northwestern China's Gansu province caused 39 injuries, Xinhua news agency and the local government said.

Six people were seriously wounded in the blast at the Tianzhu County Rural Credit United Cooperative in the city of Wuwei in Tianzhu county, which a witness called a homemade "gasoline bomb", Xinhua said in an English-language report.

The Tianzhu government said that Yang Xianwen, a Han Chinese fired from his job at the bank last month after being accused of embezzlement, had thrown a bottle filled with gasoline into a meeting room, setting it ablaze.  

"He harboured a grudge, and committed arson in the name of revenge," the local government said in a statement on its website http:www.gstianzhu.gov.cnhuaruinewstzxw).                                            Yang fled the scene and police were "urgently" looking for him, it added.

Bomb attacks are rare in China, although disgruntled residents have set off explosions in buses and buildings in the past to complain about local grievances. 

There have also been bomb attacks by militants in the far western region of Xinjiang, where members of the Muslim Uighur minority chafe at Chinese controls.