Streets littered with bodies as explosions wreak havoc in city

MUMBAI’S most famous landmark overlooking the Arabian Sea was yesterday littered with blood, shattered glass and mangled car parts.

Throngs of tourists and trinket-sellers spending a leisurely afternoon outside the Gateway of India arch scurried for cover as a taxi in the parking lot blew apart, smashing windows across the street at the prestigious Taj Mahal Hotel.

Seven minutes later, another taxi exploded outside one of the city’s leading Hindu temples, inside Mumbai’s densely populated old city, demolishing a ramshackle shop selling fruit juice.

Kanak Raja had just parked his car outside the Gateway of India when a taxi exploded, sending splinters flying in all directions. “There was chaos. People ran for cover and shouted. Some people had blood streaming from their bodies,” he 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. “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,” he said.

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 Mumbai, 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.

The dense jungle of buildings around the temple saved the shrine from any damage.

Hundreds of relatives packed into the JJ Hospital near the temple, which reported 28 of the 44 deaths.

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.

“I have never seen anything so horrible,” Dr S Manoj said. “It was just body parts, some with their abdominal organs hanging out, some with no faces at all. The bodies were all burnt.”

“There were hands and legs flying in the air, blood everywhere,” Anil Punjabi, whose jewellery shop was next to the market on Dhanji Street, said. “I saw some bodies were thrown 10 to 15 feet away from the blast site.”

“I saw people thrashing around on the road,” street cleaner Raju Ghosh said. “There were chunks of flesh like mutton pieces all over. I picked up 12 bodies, with legs, hands and heads blown off. My head was spinning and I was trembling, but I continued carrying the bodies.”

Among the dead, witnesses said, were seven people from the northwestern desert state of Rajasthan, visiting the temple on their way to a Hindu pilgrimage south of the city.

The GT Hospital took in three dead and 40 injured, while 13 more were declared dead at St George Hospital.