The death toll from the two massive truck bombings near Iraqi ministries on Wednesday, rose to 75 and 310 others wounded, an interior ministry source said.
"The latest reports said that 75 people were killed and 310 others were wounded by the two truck bomb attacks," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
The first blast took place before midday under a bridge close to the Iraqi Finance Ministry near a highway in Waziriyah district at the eastern bank of the Tigris River, when a truck loaded with explosives blew up bringing down some 50 meters of the bridge and causing severe damages to the ministry building, the source said.
The Shraqiyah, an Iraqi local television aired a footage showing the ministry's ten-story building was badly damaged while dozens of cars were charred and fire engines were putting out fires of some destroyed vehicles.
The second blast occurred about two minutes later when another booby-trapped truck detonated near a parking-lot close to the foreign ministry at the edge of the Green Zone in central Baghdad, badly damaging the facade of the ministry building and parts of the nearby al-Rasheed while some windows of the Iraqi parliament building was smashed, the police source added.
The powerful blast left a carter of three meters deep and some 10 meters wide, he added.
"Most of the wounded people were hit by the smashed windows of the buildings and cars, the police said.
The Iraqia official television also aired a footage showing the destruction of the foreign ministry, while Iraqi security forces and rescue teams were trying to retrieve bodies from a charred cars as dozens of the badly destroyed vehicles scattered at the street in front of the building.
Parts of roofs of the abandoned Rasheed Theater building, which located in front of the al-Mansour Hotel, about 500 meters away from the foreign ministry site, have fallen by the massive blast, the source said.
(Xinhua News Agency August 19, 2009)
