INDIA: The heaving wholesale jewellery and cloth market in India's western port city of Bombay was a scene of carnage after a bomb ripped through it on Monday, scattering the area around with body parts, blood, wrecked cars and glass.
A few seconds after the deafening blast gutted at least 10 shops, the thousands of people collected in the busy bazaar were too dazed to react. Then all hell broke loose. Blood-soaked people shrieking in terror ran helter-skelter, screaming.
"It was raining glass and body parts," said Dev Raj Sangla who runs a shoe shop in Bombay's Zaveri Bazaar. It was frightening seeing so many dismembered bodies, he said.
Thirty of the 52 people who died in the two explosions that rocked India's financial capital perished in this crowded marketplace that is at the heart of the city's innovative commerce.
Witnesses said amongst the dead were seven Hindu pilgrims from the western state of Rajasthan, visiting the famed Mumbaidevi temple which is named after the city's patron goddess.
Four members of a Muslim family who worked in a gold thread embroidery shop died instantly. There was little of them that could be recovered, Rajesh Shukla said yesterday.
Seven minutes later, another equally powerful blast shook Bombay's elegant seafront promenade, which is overlooked by the awesome Gateway of India through which King George V passed along with Queen Mary on their first visit to India in 1911.
As the car bomb exploded, tourists lounging around the arch were thrown over the parapet into the Arabian Sea, as if an invisible hand had carelessly pushed them over.
Bus driver Tanaji Pawar was walking towards the Gateway as the bomb - hidden in the boot of a taxi - detonated, destroying the vehicle and sending shards of metal flying in all directions.
The remains of the vehicle were still there yesterday, 24 hours after the two blasts, awaiting examination by forensic experts.
"It was devastating," Pawar said. "I cannot believe I am alive. It must be my karma that saved me," he added.
Kanak Raja had just arrived at the Gateway. "Shouting people ran around trying to duck for cover," he said. Many had blood streaming down their bodies. Some had no limbs, he said.
Three of the city's large hospitals ran short of blood, but hundreds of volunteers lined up to donate blood as demand outstripped supplies. Hospital reception rooms were turned into morgues as bodies piled up, most charred beyond recognition.
"I have never seen anything so horrible," Dr S Manoj, who works at the JJ Hospital, said. "It was just body parts, some with no faces at all."