Tuesday, July 11 2006 22:16 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: Mumbai, July 11 (IANS) At least 137 people were killed and around 300 injured, many seriously, as seven powerful blasts ripped through packed train cars and on stations during rush hour here Tuesday evening in the worst terror attack in India in over a decade.

Top police officials admitted that the well-coordinated strikes, the worst in the country's financial capital since 1993 when 13 serial bomb attacks killed at least 270 people, were completely unexpected and led to fear that was eventually overcome by Mumbaikers' known resilience.

Starting at 6.25 p.m. at Khar station, one deafening explosion after another took place in quick succession at or near railway stations at Mahim, Jogeshwari, Borivili, Bhayander, Matunga and the Khar-Santa Cruz subway - all on the Western Railway network.

Most deaths occurred instantly in the first class train compartments as the powerful bombs that had been smuggled into them went off, throwing off bodies or body parts on to tracks and creating pandemonium.

Many died while jumping out of trains that had caught fire.

Train carriages turned into complete wrecks, the steel doors and windows torn apart, the roofs blown up and seats flung on to railway tracks, with bloodstains everywhere.

"There were gory scenes anywhere," said Mahadev, a middle-aged man who was traveling on one of the trains that suffered a blast. "We ran to the compartment where the bomb went off. The roof had blown up. There was smoke everywhere."

Another witness, a woman, said: "I saw people hanging from the train compartments. What I was really horrific. There were limbs on railway tracks."

In the absence of stretchers, dead bodies were dumped into bed covers and taken home.

Dazed survivors, blood on their faces, stared blankly at the explosion sites, some trying desperately to speak to their families on mobile telephones held by young men who came rushing from neighbourhood buildings. All this while it kept raining all over the city, making the situation much more grim and difficult.

The first rescue operations came from train passengers and people in the vicinity of railway stations who complained that there was no trace of policemen in the initial half hour.

Taxi drivers chipped in, asking their passengers to get off so that they could ferry the injured to the nearest hospitals.

Mumbai Police Commissioner put the death toll at 135 and said more than 300 people were injured. But the number of injured would be much more because many who suffered simple cuts and burns did not even go to hospitals.

Hospitals across the city battled to meet the rush of the dead and the injured, as well as worried family members looking for their missing ones.

Within minutes, all trains on the Western Railway network came to a halt. Policemen cordoned off the stations and found some more bombs that were meant to explode -- and quickly defused them.

But the Central Railway trains continued to ply, taking in many more thousands of stranded passengers. Thousands more simply trekked for several kilometers in the absence of buses and public transport.

Joint Commissioner of Police Arup Patnaik told journalists: "It looks there is a terrorist hand."

Police Commissioner Roy, running from one station to another, also appealed for calm.

"I urge the people of Mumbai to stay calm. We are trying to bring the situation under control. Our first priority is to rescue the injured. Nobody should believe in rumours.

"We are removing dead bodies. We are also ensuring that nothing like this happens anywhere else in the city. We are also helping people to move to their respective places."

Many of the deaths took place as people leapt out of the running stations following the blasts, in some cases causing stampede as screaming men and women, most of them returning home from work, ran in different directions.

Electric trains in Mumbai are its lifeline and ferry some five million people daily.

Of this, the Western Railway, operational between Churchgate Terminus in south Mumbai and Dahanu Road, 120 km away, accounts for 2.6 million passengers.

During peak hour, a train can pack in more than 4,700 passengers although the official carrying capacity is just 1,700.

Mumbai citizens are not new to disasters, whether natural or man-made. They had barely recovered from the torrential rains and politically inspired violence when terror struck again, almost exactly after three years,

Nearly 60 people had died in terror blasts in the city in August 2003.