Filipino investigators look for evidence among the wreckage after a car bomb explosion in Cotabato City on Mindanao, Monday (August 5th). No group claimed responsibility for the late-afternoon blast that killed five people in the mixed Muslim-Catholic city, its second bombing in ten days. [Mark Navales/AFP]

COTABATO, Philippines – At least five people were killed when a powerful bomb exploded in the centre of the southern Philippines city of Cotabato on Monday (August 5th), AFP reported.

The explosive device was inside a vehicle near a school and a hospital, city police chief Senior Superintendent Rolen Balquin told local Catholic radio station DXMS. "The explosion was on a very busy street."

The late-afternoon blast damaged at least four vehicles and triggered a fire that engulfed two nearby buildings. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

It was the second bombing to hit Mindanao in ten days. The first, at a crowded restaurant in the city of Cagayan de Oro on July 26th, killed eight people.