A car bomb exploded at a police academy in Colombia's capital Bogota on Thursday, killing at least eight people and wounding about 10, authorities said.

The bomb went off in the General Santander Police School in the south of the capital, Mayor Enrique Penalosa told reporters.

The Defense Ministry put the death toll at eight. Authorities did not immediately say if the dead and wounded were police or civilians.

Colombian President Ivan Duque said he was returning to the capital from the west of the country, where he had been attending a meeting on security, and had ordered security forces to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice.

"All Colombians reject terrorism and are united to confront it," he said on Twitter.

There was no word on who might be behind the explosion. Colombia grappled for decades with a civil war but the worst of the violence ended with a peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in 2016.

Images on social media showed the remains of a vehicle in flames in the parking area of the police school, and emergency responders at the scene.