At least eight people were killed after a bomb attached to a fuel tanker exploded in a city in northern Afghanistan, officials said Wednesday, in the latest attack to hit the country.

Fire from the blast engulfed a passing long-distance passenger bus and Toyota vehicle in the centre of Charikar, the capital of Parwan province, provincial governor spokeswoman Wahida Shahkar told AFP.

Shahkar said the bus had been en route to the Afghan capital Kabul and was full at the time of the blast.

Parwan provincial police chief Mohammad Zaman Mamozai told AFP eight people were confirmed dead and 24 wounded.

Ten of the injured are in a serious condition, he added.

"The explosion of the fuel tanker was the result of a sticky bomb but the fire spread to a passing passenger bus," Mamozai said.

Several photos posted on Twitter purportedly of the scene of the blast show a vehicle resembling a bus on fire.

This is the latest deadly attack to strike war-weary Afghanistan where Taliban and Islamic State insurgents have stepped up assaults in recent weeks.

On Tuesday a suicide bomber blew himself up inside Kabul's heavily fortified diplomatic zone at the heart of the city, killing at least five people and wounding dozens more.

Source:AFP