COLOMBO, June 13, 2006 (AFP) - Traffic was held up along a highway in Sri Lanka's main city of Colombo Tuesday following a bomb hoax, police said.

An anonymous caller had warned of a bomb at a state bank building in the city but a search turned up nothing, a police official here said.

Last month, the authorities shut down an entire street in the main financial district of Colombo following fears of a car bomb attack.

Security across Sri Lanka has been tightened due to spiralling violence in the embattled northeast which has severely strained a ceasefire between government forces and Tamil Tiger rebels.

Efforts by peace broker Norway to get the government and the rebels to the peace negotiating table have ended in failure in a country where more than 60,000 people have been killed in three decades of ethnic bloodshed.

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