A fire-stricken oil tanker was pushed away from Sri Lanka's coast and into deeper waters on Saturday, rescuers said, after successfully containing the blaze during a 36-hour operation.

Gunmen fired on buses carrying minority Muslim voters in northwest Sri Lanka on Saturday, police said, as an election official admitted failures to protect vulnerable communities ahead of presidential polls.

A state of emergency was extended by Sri Lanka's President Saturday, going back on pledges to relax the tough laws introduced after the Easter Sunday attacks that killed 258 people.

Sri Lanka's president has sacked the national intelligence chief and will not cooperate with a parliamentary investigation into security lapses before the Easter suicide bombings, officials said Saturday.

Sri Lanka's military launched a major hunt Saturday for remnants of an Islamist group which carried out the Easter suicide bombings that killed 258 people, officials said.

Sri Lanka's minority Muslims attended Friday prayers as heavily armed troops and police guarded all mosques, including those badly vandalised in riots in the wake of the Easter terror attacks.

A Sri Lankan province north of the capital was under indefinite curfew Tuesday after the first death in anti-Muslim riots in the wake of the Easter terror attacks, police said.

Sri Lanka's Catholic Church has cancelled plans to resume Sunday services following a "specific threat" of fresh bomb attacks against at least two places of worship, a spokesman said.

Sri Lankan authorities have identified 42 foreign nationals among the 253 people killed in the string of Easter suicide bombings, officials said Tuesday.

Suicide bombers cornered by security forces in a hideout in eastern Sri Lanka blew themselves up in a raid which left 15 people dead, including six children, police said Saturday.