COLOMBO - AT LEAST 44 people were wounded when a blast hit a busy commercial area in Sri Lanka's capital Colombo, officials said.

'There had been an explosion,' military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said. 'It was a bomb placed close to an apple vendor in Pettah.'

Military officials speaking on condition of anonymity said the blast was triggered by around 100 grammes of explosives placed in a crowded market.

Colombo National Hospital's director, Dr. Hector Weerasinghe, said: 'Forty-four people have been admitted to hospital including two children and four women.' There were no immediate deaths, he said.

Sri Lanka's government officially scrapped a ceasefire in January and has since intensified a drive to defeat the separatist Tamil Tiger rebels in the island nation's north.

In recent weeks, the military has increased its attacks and captured rebel-held territory, trying to make good on a pledge to wipe out the Tamil Tigers by the year's end.

The rebels since 1983 have fought a civil war to carve out a homeland in northern Sri Lanka for the ethnic minority Tamil people. -- REUTERS