World | India
Blasts hit trains in Mumbai
More than 160 people have been killed and scores injured in a series of rush hour blasts that targetted the crowded railway network in India's financial capital of Mumbai. Casualty figures are on the rise.
- Agencies
- Published: 00:00 July 11, 2006
Mumbai: More than 160 people were killed and scores injured in a series of blasts in India's financial capital of Mumbai on Tuesday, Mumbai police said.
"The death toll is 163 and around 460 people have been injured," said police inspector Ashok Jadhav.
Other reports claimed that at least 174 people died in at least seven blasts that hit Mumbai's railway network, including the Matunga railway station, during evening rush hour.
Hospital officials earlier reported more than 200 wounded, while Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh estimated at least 300 injured.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appealed for calm, while police suspect the blast could be the work of terrorists.
The bombs reportedly denotated in a highly coordinated fashion at between 20 to 30 minutes apart, damaging at least 20 kilometres of railway.
Mumbai police chief AN Roy said that forensic experts are working to determine the kind of explosives used.
New Delhi police said they were on the lookout for more violence, and have conducted checks in buses, bus stops, train stations and religious institutions.
"The blasts happened when the trains were most crowded," said DK Shankaran, chief secretary of the state of Maharashtra.
Television footage showed several mutilated bodies on the blast site and more than a dozen injured people near the site of another blast in Mumbai's Khar station.
One badly injured person lying near railway tracks was carried away by people using a long sheet of cloth.
Police officials said two more explosions took place in the Santa Cruz and Mahim suburbs of the city.
Survivors were shown with wounds from injuries to heads, legs and hands on the railway station with little sign of any emergency medical aid.
The Mumbai blasts came just hours after suspected Islamist militants killed seven people, six of them tourists, in a series of grenade attacks in Srinagar.
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