Security alert at Sri Lanka central bank lifted: sources

Alert was lifted after bank was locked down following a warning about an impending explosion

Sri Lankan authorities lifted a security alert at the central bank in the capital Colombo on Thursday after it was locked down following a warning about an impending explosion, two bank sources said.

Workers were allowed to leave the bank, the sources said.

The death toll in a series of suicide bomb blasts on Easter Sunday targeting hotels and churches in Sri Lanka has risen to 359, police said Wednesday.

Nearly 60 people have been detained since the Sunday blasts, which ripped through high-end hotels and churches packed with Easter worshippers in the capital Colombo and beyond.

It is the worst violence in the country since the end of a Tamil insurgency a decade ago.