World in brief: Dozens on bus killed by mine

A passenger bus packed with commuters and schoolchildren hit a powerful land mine in Sri Lanka today, killing at least 58 people, the army said.

Military spokesman Prasad Samarasinghe blamed the Tamil Tiger rebels, saying their “motive is to create terror.” The explosion was the worst single act of violence since the government and Tamil Tigers signed a cease-fire in 2002.

A doctor at the hospital where the victims’ bodies were taken said that 15 schoolchildren were among the 58 killed. Another 78 people were reportedly wounded by the blast in Kabithigollewa, a town in the northern Anuradhapura district.

Mount Merapi, Indonesia

Two trapped as volcano erupts

Rescuers dug through volcanic debris today to reach two people trapped in an underground emergency shelter when Indonesia’s most volatile volcano erupted, nearly enveloping a village with a searing gas cloud and forcing thousands of residents to flee.

The rescuers had been in touch with the two by cell phone. The bunkers, several of which dot the slopes of Mount Merapi, are typically equipped with water and food.

The eruption Wednesday came just a day after officials lowered the alert level and people returned to the homes around Mount Merapi.

“The situation is … life-threatening,” said Yousana Siagian, head of the government’s Vulcanology and Disaster Mitigation Center, after the alert level for Mount Merapi was raised to its highest status again and it dumped thick ash on scores of houses.

Jawhar, Somalia

Islamist militias solidify control

Islamist militias Wednesday tightened their hold on southern Somalia, seizing control of a major strategic town and ousting a group of secular warlords in a brief, decisive battle just a week after driving them from Mogadishu.

The nation’s transitional government, based in Baidoa, asked the African Union to deploy peacekeeping troops.

The attack on Jawhar, about 60 miles north of Mogadishu, began midmorning. Within hours the warlords’ militias that had dominated the capital for 15 years were fleeing their last stronghold. As many as 19 people may have died in the fighting.

London

Ex-worker admits delivering tarantula

A man admitted Wednesday to delivering a package containing a tarantula to a female co-worker on the same day he handed in his resignation.

Mahlon Hector pleaded guilty in Leicester Magistrates’ Court to delivering a rare Mexican red-kneed tarantula in a box addressed to the colleague at a branch of the Marks & Spencer store in Leicester. At the same time, he handed store bosses his resignation.

The intended recipient, Susan Griffin, was not hurt.

Hector, 22, is to be sentenced later on the charge of sending a letter or other article conveying a threat on March 28. He did not reveal his motive in court.

When workers at the store discovered the tarantula, they alerted the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which took it away.