BREAKING NEWS: Mumbai Blasts Center at Devi Temple

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SHATTERED CARS, BLOOD, GLASS

 

MUMBAI (August 25, 2003 16:04) - Bombay's most famous landmark

overlooking the Arabian Sea was Monday littered with mangled car

parts, blood and shattered glass.

 

Throngs of tourists and trinket-sellers spending a leisurely

afternoon outside the Gateway of India arch were sent scurrying for

cover as a taxi in the parking lot blew apart, smashing windows

across the street at the Taj Mahal Hotel, Bombay's most prestigious

address.

 

Seven minutes later, another taxi exploded outside one of the city's

leading Hindu temples, inside Bombay's densely populated old city,

demolishing a ramshackle shop selling fruit juice.

 

Kanak Raja had just parked his Mitsubishi Lancer outside the Gateway

of India when a taxi exploded, sending splinters flying in all

directions.

 

"The roof of the taxi was ripped apart and was thrown at least 100m

near the entrance of the Taj Mahal," he said, referring to the

luxury hotel whose guests have included Prince Charles and Michael

Jackson.

 

"There was chaos. People ran for cover and shouted. Some people had

blood streaming from their bodies," Raja said.

 

Tanaji Pawar, a bus driver, was startled by the blast as he walked

towards the Gateway of India, built by British colonialists in 1924

after a visit by King George V The last British troops in India

ceremonially departed at the towering archway in February 1948, six

months after independence.

 

PANIC STRICKEN

 

"I rushed back when I heard the explosion," Pawar said, adding he

saw panic-stricken men and women running helter-skelter.

 

"I helped some of the injured people, bundled them into private cars

or cabs and rushed them to hospital," he said.

 

"It was a scene of complete anarchy and chaos. I knew when I lifted

some of the injured that they had no chances of survival. They were

dead."

 

Adding to the anarchy, Bombay's mobile telephone network quickly

jammed from an overload of calls, as people frantically tried to

reach loved ones who may have been hurt.

 

A column of windows shattered on the 12-storey Taj Mahal Hotel from

the force of the explosion. A spokesperson for the elite hotel said

there was no permanent damage to its structure and that no guests or

employees were injured.

 

The whole gateway area was cordoned off, with scores of police

scouring the scene for clues. Sniffer dogs were brought out to

search for other bombs around southern Bombay, the city's financial

heart.

 

Minutes later a taxi exploded outside the Mumbadevi temple named

after the patron goddess of the city, also known as Mumbai.

 

A small shop selling juice was rendered unrecognisable with a few

surrounding shops and cars also destroyed. The dense jungle of

buildings around the temple saved the shrine from any damage.

 

Hundreds of relatives and curious onlookers packed into the JJ

Hospital near the temple, which reported 28 of the 44 deaths.

 

DISFIGURED

 

Stretcher upon stretcher was brought into the hospital by ambulances

and private vehicles, as volunteers helped doctors and nurses shift

the injured from emergency rooms to operating rooms. Many of the

dead were so badly disfigured they could not be immediately

identified.

 

Among the dead, witnesses said, were seven people from the

northwestern desert state of Rajasthan who were visiting the temple

on their way to a Hindu pilgrimage south of the city.

 

At the GT Hospital, which took in three dead and 40 injured, Sanjay

Waghmare helped ferry the bloodied bodies of the victims from

waiting cars to emergency wards.

 

Thirteen more were declared dead at Saint George Hospital. An

employee of the state medical department, Waghmare said he was given

an urgent SOS to help rescue efforts.

 

"There was complete chaos after the blasts. Everyone - social

workers, health department people and simple volunteers - have been

asked to come in," he said.

 

Source: News24.com

URL: http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,6119,2-10-

1462_1406792,00.html