YOLA, Nigeria (REUTERS) - A roadside bomb tore through a bus station near a busy junction in north-east Nigeria on Thursday, killing 40 people including five soldiers, witnesses and a security source on the scene said.

The security source and witness Abubakar Adamu, a mechanic who narrowly avoided being blown up himself, said the blast set several buses on fire at the Marabi-Mubi junction, in a part of the country plagued by violence linked to the Boko Haram Islamist insurgency.