HAT YAI, Thailand (AFP) -- Thai police picked through the wreckage for clues Sunday after a string of bombs tore apart a popular tourist area, killing four people and wounding dozens in troubled southern Thailand.

The six simultaneous blasts ripped through Saturday night crowds in bars and cafes in Hat Yai, the main tourist hub in the southern region that has been gripped by a Muslim insurgency which has killed more than 1,400 people.

A Canadian tourist was among the latest dead, according to officials. A dead female mistakenly identified by medical staff as a Chinese tourist turned out later to be an ethnic minority from Chiang Mai, hospital officials said.

Health minister Pinit Jarusombat said 14 other foreigners were among the 72 wounded, and included six Malaysians, three Singaporeans, three Britons, an Indian and an American.

Paitoon Pattanasophon, police chief in Songkhla province, where Hat Yai is located, said police were holding emergency meetings during the morning as the hunt for suspects got underway.

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has ordered his deputies to work closely with police and military, his secretary said.

Police Lieutenant Colonel Prasit Paochoo said two explosive devices were planted inside motorcycles and detonated with a mobile phone.

The other four were planted near the entrances of two department stores and a hotel frequented by foreigners, he said, adding that police were still unsure what kind of bombs they were.

As dawn broke in the city, crowds of shocked onlookers gathered amid the wreckage. Walls were studded with shrapnel at the sites, which were covered with debris and pools of blood.

"I heard the blast and I live a kilometer away", said one bystander as others stood numbly on the edges of devastated restaurants.

Several charred vehicles lay in the road where they had burned the night before.

Outside the Brown Sugar Bar and Cafe an Australian visitor still wearing his hospital gown stood staring at the wreckage of where he was drinking the night before.

"I feel really lucky today," said the distraught man, who did not give his name, adding that doctors had removed shrapnel from his shoulder and his girlfriend suffered multiple fractures to her leg.

In the immediate aftermath of the blasts, Thai television showed bloodied victims lying in restaurants or being led to safety by rescue personnel as vehicles burned in streets, which were strewn with shattered glass and overturned tables and chairs.

One body was shown covered with a white sheet next to an overturned motorcycle as firemen tried to douse several blazing vehicles nearby.

Soon after the blasts, nearly 1,000 foreign and Thai tourists staying in hotels along Hat Yai's main road were evacuated, the Nation newspaper reported.

Hat Yai was also the victim of deadly insurgent violence in April of last year when the city's airport was bombed, killing two people, and the city has been struggling to rebuild its tourism industry.

Parts of Songkhla province are under martial law as the government struggles to contain an Islamic insurgency, and provincial governor Somporn Chaibangyang said the attacks would further damage Hat Yai's tourism sector, which is still recovering from the airport blasts.

"We need to work hard to regain our tourism," he said.

"Authorities have to work completely to prevent any violence from happening. But it is difficult to keep watching every single area, as wrongdoers will make violence in the area where they think they will have the most success," he said.