China is shocked at the devastating bomb attack on the United Nations (UN) headquarters in Iraq, Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said in Beijing Tuesday.

China condemns the violent attack meant for the UN staff, Kong said, extending condolences to the victims and sympathy and solicitude for the sufferers in the blast.

A truck bomb ripped through the UN headquarters in Iraq Tuesday afternoon, causing heavy casualties.

Kong said China supports the UN effort for the reconstruction of Iraq and strongly calls for authorities concerned to take measures to safeguard the personal security of UN staff in that country.

Top UN envoy in Iraq dead

A cement truck packed with explosives detonated outside the offices of the top UN envoy in Iraq on Tuesday, killing him and 19 other people and devastating the UN headquarters in an unprecedented suicide attack against the world body. At least 100 people were wounded.

The bombing blasted a 6-foot-deep crater in the ground, shredded the facade of the Canal Hotel housing UN offices and stunned an organization that had been welcomed by many Iraqis, in contrast to the US-led occupation forces.

Except for a newly built concrete wall, UN officials at the headquarters refused the sort of heavy security that the US military has put up around some sensitive civilian sites. The United Nations "did not want a large American presence outside," Salim Lone, the UN spokesman in the Iraqi capital, said.

Emergency workers pulled bloodied survivors from the rubble and lined up the dead in body bags. Survivors reported other victims still buried.

The 4:30 p.m. blast may have specifically targeted Sergio Vieira de Mello, the top UN envoy, said L. Paul Bremer, who heads the US-led administration in Iraq. "The truck was parked in such a place here in front of the building that it had to affect his office," Bremer said.

Vieira de Mello -- a 55-year-old veteran diplomat serving in what one UN spokesman called the world body's toughest assignment -- was meeting with other UN officials in his office when the explosion brought the room down around them. Vieira de Mello was wounded and trapped in the rubble, and workers gave him water as they tried to extricate him. Hours later, the United Nations announced his death.

UN condemns bombing, mourns slain envoy

The killing of UN top official in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, and at least 15 staffers in Baghdad stunned the world body at its headquarters in New York on Tuesday.

The UN Security Council condemned the bombing as a "terrorist, criminal attack" while Secretary-General Kofi Annan cut short his vacation in Finland and called for the "perpetrators of this outrage" to be brought to justice.

At the UN headquarters in New York, the flags of all 191 member countries were taken down, leaving only the blue-and-white UN flag flying at half mast.

Dazed staff wept as television displayed grim pictures of the devastation at the main UN office building in Iraq, where some 300 of their colleagues worked. Many were still trapped in the rubbles and the death toll was certain to go up, officials said.

In a statement, Annan said De Mello's death was "a bitter blow for the United Nations and for me personally." "The death of any colleague is hard to bear but I could think of no one we could less spare," the UN chief said.

UN officials said they believe the office of De Mello, the UN Special Representative for Iraq, had been the target of the suicide truck bombing.

De Mello, 55, had already served with honor in Kosovo, East Timor and other hot spots around the world to handle difficult missions for the world body, before he was temporarily moved from his post as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to become the UN Secretary-General's special representative in Iraq in June.

"He was working day and night to help the Iraqi people regain control of their own destiny and build a future of peace, justice and full independence," Annan said. "Let us strive to be worthy ofhim, and to complete the work that he began, so that his death will not have been in vain."

"Nothing can excuse this act of unprovoked and murderous violence against men and women who went to Iraq for one purpose only: to help the Iraqi people recover their independence and sovereignty, and to rebuild their country as fast as possible, under leaders of their own choosing," Annan added.

The 15-member Security Council affirmed that the blast would not deter the world body from its work of rebuilding Iraq. "Such terrorist incidents cannot break the will of the international community to further intensify its efforts to help the people of Iraq," council members said in a statement read by Deputy UN ambassador Fayssal Mekdad of Syria, the Security Council president for August.

Annan's spokesman Fred Eckhard said the bombing inevitably raised the questions over the future of the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq, which was set up by the Security Council last week to coordinate humanitarian assistance and give political advice.

"Of course we will have to ask how safe we feel Iraq is as a place for the hundreds of UN staff members who were going to join Sergio's team as part of the new UN mission there," Eckhard said.

(Sources from Xinhua News Agency and China Daily, August 20, 2003)