Guaridan Unlimited
Chaos and Carnage at Scene of Bombings
Tuesday July 11, 2006 8:31 PM
By RAMOLA TALWAR BADAM
Associated Press Writer
BOMBAY, India (AP) - It took just 11 minutes. One by one down the railway line, the bombs went off, ripping apart the trains, tearing through flesh and paralyzing what is arguably India's most vibrant city.
The eight blasts struck during the busy evening rush hour Tuesday in what officials said was a well-coordinated bomb attack by terrorists.
The powerful explosive devices, which police think were hidden in luggage racks above the commuters' heads, destroyed carriages, spewing charred and twisted metal and blood-spattered debris and luggage across the rails.
As police and rescue services struggled to reach the blast scenes through Bombay's jammed, chaotic everyday traffic and the torrential monsoon rains, bystanders stepped up, pulling the wounded from the wreckages, offering them water and bundling them into every available vehicle - from trucks to three-wheeled auto-rikshaws.
Others wrapped bodies in railway blankets and carried them away. Later, police collected body parts in white plastic bags streaked with blood and rain.
Survivors were seen clutching bloody bandages to their heads and faces. Those who could walked from the stations to hospitals.
There, they found scenes of chaos and carnage.
Doctors and volunteers wheeled in the injured and dead, one after the other.
``I can't hear anything. People around me didn't survive,'' said Shailesh Mhate, a man in his 20s, sitting on the floor of Bombay's Veena Desai Hospital surrounded by bloody cotton swabs.
``I don't know how I did,'' he said holding his head in his hands.
Next to him a man wearing a tattered T-shirt and torn jeans lay unconscious, his face covered with blood.
Nearby, Param Singh lay on a bed, a blood-soaked bandage covering an empty eye socket and shrapnel wounds dotting his face. Anxiously, the young man gave an attendant his father's number. After 20 minutes they finally got through.
``I am OK, don't worry, I am safe,'' he said before handing the phone over to a doctor and whispering: ``don't tell him about the eye.''
Others desperately searched for loved ones.
``My friend from the office was in the other compartment. I don't know if he is injured,'' sobbed a woman who identified herself as Geeta, as she ran from ward to ward.
The bombings also brought Bombay, India's entertainment and financial capital, to a virtual standstill.
As news spread throughout this city of 16 million people, frantic residents tried to call family and friends. The mobile phone network collapsed, adding to the sense of panic.
With train services down, thousands of people were stranded, unable to return home and with no way to let their families know where they were.