Demerara Harbour Bridge commuters got an early morning shock and were left in a traffic jam on Friday when a minibus heading to Georgetown burst into flames.

Mohammed Abdulla, owner of the vehicle, was the only occupant at the time and said that the fire arose from some sort of mechanical problem. He said he’d recently had the vehicle checked and up to Thursday there was nothing wrong with it.

The man said that sometime before 8am on Friday he was driving along the bridge when someone shouted to him that there were flames beneath his vehicle. Abdulla said he immediately stopped but before he could check underneath the vehicle it had already burst into flames.

While the incident inconvenienced commuters no one was injured and damage was confine to Abdulla’s bus. Besides a scorched spot on the bridge’s asphalt coating the structure did not suffer any serious damages.