RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - A police sniper in Rio de Janeiro on Tuesday shot dead a man who had hijacked a bus on a bridge across Guanabara Bay and taken 37 people hostage, in a dramatic end to an incident that underlined the daily grind of violence in the Brazilian city.

The hijacking, from which all the hostages emerged unharmed, began before dawn when a masked man commandeered a commuter bus on the bridge connecting Rio with the city of Niteroi. The man took 37 people in the bus hostage before freeing six of them, officials said.