BAGHDAD: “This is where Umm Kadhim and her son had their ice stall and here Abu Aqeel and his son sold eggs,” a shell-shocked Hussein Mohammed said among the ruins of the Al-Ula (First) market.

At least 66 people were killed and 98 wounded in a devastating attack on the busy market in Baghdad’s crowded Shia district of Sadr City.

Mohammed said he saw the driver of a Japanese-made Hino truck stopping first in the median of the busy two-way Al-Dakhil street.

The street is a major market lined with shops selling everything from bridal gowns to kitchenware. On top of that many people have step up stalls along the street and in packed alleyways selling fruits, vegetables and other goods.

“The truck driver tried several times to go over the pavement and go inside one of the alleyways but he failed and when a police car came towards him, he blew himself at an opening in the pavement,” Mohammed said.

This was confirmed by another witness Kadhim Mohammed and a policeman at the scene who said “the truck’s back was packed with explosives concealed under boxes of pears and apples.”

At least 25 vehicles were reduced to heaps of charred metal as angry residents tried to pull out the dead and the wounded from the scene, as the area flooded with raw sewerage. Shop walls were left stained with blood.

A shirtless man frantically loaded bodies onto a pickup truck. A young girl’s body was found on the roof of a nearby gymnasium from the impact of the bast. Charred melons, apples and broken boxes of eggs littered the pavement.

Tears streamed down Souad Mohammed’s face as she searched for her mother.

“She went shopping this morning. I looked for her at all the hospitals in Sadr City but have not found her yet. Oh my God maybe she’s dead,” she said as fighters from the area’s Mehdi Army militia tried to comfort her.

Many militiamen sealed off the entrances to the area searching all vehicles coming in.

Mosques in the area urged people through loudspeakers to go to hospitals in the area to give blood.

“The situation in the hospitals is pathetic because this is a poor area and we lack supplies and adequate health services,” deputy health minister Sabah al-Husseini said on state-owned television station Al-Iraqiya.

“I call on Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to allocate funds for us to deal with disasters like this.

The station interrupted its regular programming to broadcast images of previous attacks against crowded market places, patriotic songs and field calls from angry civilians and officials.—AFP