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Series of blasts on Western Railway trains; 171 killed

Series of explosions were reported on local trains at Jogeshwari, Mahim, near Khar and Bhayandar on Tuesday.

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Updated at 2.15 am, Wednesday
 
 
MUMBAI: A series of explosions were reported on Western Railway trains and railway stations at Mahim, Matunga, Jogeshwari, Santa Cruz, Borivali, Khar and Bhayandar on Tuesday. Two blasts were reported at Borivali.
 
The death toll at 2.15 am on Wednesday morning was put at 171; 464 people were injured. The blasts occurred during peak hours.
 
Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh corrected initial reports of seven blasts, saying there had been eight explosions, including two at one station.
 
Charred bodies of passengers were seen lying on tracks a few yards from Bandra station, indicating that the blast had taken place minutes after the train had moved out of the station. 
 
Telephone lines, including mobiles, were jammed immediately after the blasts.
 
Television channels showed images of people being carried away by onlookers, while many injured were in a state of shock at railway stations.
 
Services on Western Railway, where all the blasts occurred, were suspended following the blasts.
 
“The blasts happened when the trains were most crowded,” DK Shankaran, chief secretary of Maharashtra, said.
 
Dazed survivors were shown with wounds from injuries to their heads, legs and hands, on railway stations with no sign of emergency medical aid.
 
The blasts occurred within minutes of each other, with the first taking place at 6.24 pm in a crowded train at Khar, officials said.
 
"The fourth carriage is completely wrecked and we have seen between eight to 10 heavily injured people being brought out," said a witness to the Khar blast, local shopkeeper Gopi Chand.
 
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"The blast was so powerful that we thought we were hit by lightning. It shook our market," Chand said.   
 
"People began jumping off our running train when a bomb went off and filled the carriage with smoke and fire," said a commuter with serious injuries to his left arm and shoulder at Mahim station.
 
Firemen scoured the wreckage of a train which was hit by a blast in Matunga station.
 
Police said additional buses were being operated to help people reach home.
 
Police said the blasts had occurred on first class carriages of the commuter trains.
 
At least 10 bodies were brought to KEM Hospital here and another 20 seriously injured people were admitted to it following the serial blasts.
    
A few more injured were reportedly taken to the government hospital at Sion in central Mumbai, the Bhabha Hospital and VN Desai Hospital in the western suburbs from the blast sites, hospital sources said.
   
Several people had come with major injuries and fractures and doctors KEM Hospital said all the injured there are out of danger.
 
Most of the deaths are believed to have occurred at Matunga.
 
The Mumbai blasts came hours after militants killed seven people, six of them tourists, in a series of grenade attacks in Kashmir's main city, Srinagar, police said.
 
Mumbai, a metropolis of about 17 million, has been hit by a series of bomb blasts in the past decade.   
 
More than 250 people died in a string of bomb explosions in Bombay in 1993 for which authorities blamed the city's underworld criminal gangs.
 
Security has been stepped up in the city.
 
Many people offered food and water to those stranded at many railway stations.
 
 
The blast spots and time
 
Khar 6.24 pm
 
Bandra 6.2 pm
 
Jogeshwari 6.25 pm
 
Mahim 6.26 pm
 
Mira Road 6.29 pm
 
Matunga 6.30 pm
 
Borivali 6.35 pm
 
 
-- With inputs from agencies

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