ALGIERS, Dec 11: A twin car bomb strike rocked Algiers on Tuesday killing at least 67 people and devastating a UN office where staff were trapped for hours after the blasts, hospital officials said.

It was the worst of a series of bombings in the capital and other major Algerian cities this year. All the past attacks were claimed by

Al Qaeda.

One bomb ripped through the offices of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and neighbouring UN Development Programme and 10 Algerian staff of the world body were among the dead, a senior UN official said. Foreigners were among the injured, hospital sources added.

A second bomb blew apart a passing bus packed with university students outside the Supreme Court building.

Interior Minister Yazid Zerhouni said a suicide bomber triggered the explosion outside the UN offices.

The front of the building was devastated and several hours after the blast, rescuers were still struggling to reach people trapped inside the structure, many badly injured.

“It was like an earthquake,” said Ameur Rekhaila, a lawyer who was on the second floor of the building when the bomb went off at about 9:30am (0830 GMT).

In a near-simultaneous attack, a car bomb was detonated outside the Supreme Court building as a bus packed with university students passed by, heading for a nearby law faculty.

Security sources said the bus took the full force of the blast and most of the dead and injured were students.

A health ministry source said 67 people were killed in the explosions in affluent districts of Algiers.

Hospital sources said 62 people were killed and more than 100 injured in the two attacks but did not give a breakdown. They added that several foreigners were among the seriously injured.

The UN office is in the Hydra residential district where the finance and energy ministries and several diplomatic residences are also located.

Hydra is normally under tight police surveillance because of the number of foreigners who live there.

Prime Minister Abdelaziz Belkahdem called off a planned cabinet meeting to go to hospitals where injured were being treated.

“These are crimes which targeted innocent people. Students and school children were among the victims. Nothing can justify crime,” he said at one hospital.

The United States called the attacks an act of ‘senseless violence.’

“We condemn this attack on the United Nations office by these enemies of humanity who attack the innocent,” said a White House statement.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who made a state visit to Algeria last week, denounced what he described as these “barbaric, hateful and deeply cowardly acts.”—Agencies