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More than 50 injured in Thailand car bomb

 The car bomb attack happened in Pattani, southern Thailand. Picture: Google Maps
 The car bomb attack happened in Pattani, southern Thailand. Picture: Google Maps  The car bomb attack happened in Pattani, southern Thailand. Picture: Google Maps

Suspected insurgents have detonated a car bomb outside a busy shopping centre in south Thailand, wounding more than 50 people.

The huge blast ripped the building apart and sent people running for their lives.

The attackers initially set off firecrackers as a distraction before triggering the car bomb in the city of Pattani, said military spokesman Pramote Prom-in.

The blast occurred outside one of Thailand's Big C shopping centres, a major grocery and retail chain.

Footage of the scene aired on Thai television stations showed a huge black plume of smoke rising skywards from the blackened building.

Pattani Hospital posted on its board of emergency room patients that 52 people were injured in the incident.

No deaths have been reported.

Muslim separatists have waged a bloody insurgency for years in Thailand's three southernmost provinces, the only ones with Muslim majorities in the predominantly Buddhist country.

More than 6,500 people have been killed since 2004.