Indian police pick through bomb-hit Mumbai

MUMBAI - Investigators picked through the mangled wreckage of trains and stations in India's biggest city today as millions of people commuted to work and school following a string of bomb blasts that killed at least 179.

Mumbai authorities were searching for clues as to who was behind the seven coordinated bomb blasts aimed at the vital railway artery that serves the city of 17 million.

Nearly 700 people were wounded in the rush hour blasts -- the worst since 1993 when more than 250 people died in explosions -- and the toll was expected to rise as many were in critical condition.

Extra police were deployed across the country to prevent possible communal retaliation as suspicion immediately fell on Muslim militants fighting New Delhi's rule in Kashmir.

Pakistan, which denies Indian charges of tacit support for the militants, condemned what it labelled a "terrorist attack".

Authorities were running more buses on routes where train services had yet to resume.

"Mumbai has come to accept all this as part of life," said Yogesh Bafana, a rail commuter who took an early morning train with far fewer passengers than usual.

"We are scared but life must go on. We must be brave and stick to our routine," a middle-aged man told NDTV television as he boarded.

India's financial markets were expected to suffer with analysts saying the attacks were likely to hit foreign investor confidence.

The Mumbai bombs went off hours after suspected Islamist militants killed seven people, six of them tourists, in grenade attacks in Indian Kashmir's main city.

The first bomb detonated at 6.24pm Tuesday local time (1.54am today NZT) with the rest following in quick succession -- five planted in train carriages and two at stations in Mumbai's western suburbs.

The city is a teeming metropolis of contrasts, with glitzy highrise office and apartment blocks standing side-by-side with slums and pavement dwellers.

Home to Bollywood, the world's biggest movie industry, the city is a lure to millions of rural poor, attracted by the promise of riches.

But despite sometimes been known as hard-hearted, Mumbai residents went out of their way to help fellow city dwellers, offering rides in cars, providing water and biscuits as well as taking the dead and injured to hospitals.

Overnight, streams of people crowded hospitals to identify family members and friends among the corpses, many badly mutilated and charred.

"Some of the bodies had received severe burn injuries and a couple of them are beyond recognition," said Dr. Anirudh More, speaking at a state hospital in the city.

The Mumbai explosions brought worldwide expressions of outrage including from Washington and arch rival Pakistan.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurseed Mehmood Kasuri told Reuters in Washington that the blasts underlined the need for Pakistan and India to resolve their disputes.

The neighbours, both nuclear-armed, have fought three wars since 1948.

- REUTERS