Christians Under Attack

A string of explosions went off in an auditorium packed with families watching a laser show, while other blasts ripped through a congested street food stall minutes later in another part of the city.

"I saw limbs flying around me and blood splattering," the 29-year-old woman told AFP as she waited for help for a chest wound outside the auditorium in Lumbini amusement park in Hyderabad.

The blasts in the open-air venue were so powerful some victims were hurled into the air, the housewife said.

"We had been enjoying a great show," said Romanna, who like many Indians uses one name.

Abandoned shoes and blood-soaked clothes littered the amusement park where the families had endured heavy rain to attend the sound and laser-light show.

Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y.S. Rajshekhar Reddy condemned the blasts as the "cruelest acts against humanity."

Federal authorities said the blasts were work of terrorists bent on destroying the country's unity.

Police said they had some leads but did not elaborate.

"It's a bloody mess out there," a senior police officer said as panic-stricken relatives rushed to the park to search for family members.

Rescuers rushed the injured to hospital in three-wheel scooters and in private cars after the explosions.

At the scene of the other blasts, rescue workers carried out bodies burned beyond recognition from a street eating stall.

The Gokul Chat Bhandar restaurant had been crowded with people grabbing an evening snack.

There was chaos at the main Osmania hospital as wailing relatives thronged hallways searching for missing people.

"I'm looking for my niece who went to buy some books at a bookshop in Kothi overlooking Gokul Chat Bhandar," said one desperate relative.