Xinhua Asia-Pacific news summary at 1000 GMT, Dec. 26

NEW DELHI -- As many as six pilgrims, including three women, were killed and three others seriously injured when a bus hit them in India's southern state of Tamil Nadu Tuesday.

According to a local police official, the group of devotees from Tirupur district of the state was on a going on foot to a hill shrine in Palani area of Dindigul district, when the bus knocked them down at around 5.30 a.m. (India-Pilgrims-Bus accident)

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MANILA -- Two moderate quakes, one of magnitude 4.8 and another of magnitude 3.8, hit northern Philippine main island of Luzon on Tuesday, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said.

In a report, the Phivolcs said the shallow, magnitude 4.8 quake struck four km northeast of Kayapa town in Nueva Vizcaya province, north of Manila, with a depth of six km. (Philippines-Quake)

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COLOMBO -- A two-minute silence was observed across Sri Lanka on Tuesday to remember thousands of people killed in a massive tsunami that struck the island country in 2004, the Disaster Management Center said.

The two-minute silence was held from 9:25 a.m. to 9:27 a.m. local time. (Sri Lanka-Tsunami-Commemoration)

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NEW DELHI -- India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's sixth consecutive government, headed by 61-year-old Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, was sworn in on Tuesday in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state of Gujarat.

BJP won the recently held assembly elections in the western state where Modi had been the chief minister from 2001 till 2014 when he became the prime minister after the party swept to power in the general elections decimating the Congress party. (India-Election) Enditem