An explosion has rocked the Lebanese port city of Jounieh north of Beirut, killing at least one and wounding 11m news reports said.

The state-run National News Agency and Lebanese Broadcasting Corp. reported that a Sri Lankan woman labourer died in the blast.

Police said 11 wounded people, three with serious injuries, were taken to the hospital and another 12 suffered minor injuries from cuts of flying glass.

The National News Agency said later the bomb was placed outside a Christian religious radio station and a church. It came hours before the outspoken anti-Syrian Christian leader General Michel Aoun was to return to Lebanon from a 14-year exile in France.

Bombings in March and early April killed three people and injured 24.

Fire engines rushed to the scene, manoeuvring their way through the narrow alleys of the old town on the Bay of Jounieh.

Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt accused the Lebanese government and Lebanon's President Emile Lahoud of being responsible for the series of explosions that have taken place recently.

Subsequently, mass anti-Syrian protests and intense international pressure forced Syria to withdraw its troops.

Syrian forces completed their withdrawal on 26 April and a new government was installed in Beirut last month.

The country is to hold crucial parliamentary elections beginning on 29 May.

PHOTO CAPTION

Rescuers inspect the damage following a bomb blast in the al-Mahabba Christian radio station and St. John's Church in Jounieh, north of Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, May 6, 2005. (AP)