Many victims were trapped in their apartments by a raging fire that engulfed at least one building, according to police and Interior Ministry officials, who also said about 75 people were wounded. Stunned survivors stumbled through the rubble-strewn street, which was filled with the smoke from burning vehicles, witnesses said.
The attack shattered the relative calm in the capital since a May 11 cease-fire ended seven weeks of fighting between U.S. and Iraqi forces and Shiite militants in the Sadr City district. Ironically, it came the same day the Iraqi parliament announced plans to move outside the U.S.-protected Green Zone.
Angry survivors blamed the army and police for failing to protect them.
"The blast occurred because there wasn't any security presence by the Iraqi army or police at the scene, not even any checkpoint," said Khalid Hassan, 40, who suffered shrapnel wounds and burns. "People were confused, upset and running in all directions. We are all victims of terrorism and carelessness."
The bomber struck about 5:45 p.m. near a market and bus stop in the Hurriyah district of west Baghdad, scene of some of the most horrific sectarian massacres during the wave of Sunni-Shiite slaughter in 2006.
Kamil Jassim, a witness, said the blast set fire to a generator used by residents and shopkeepers to supplement city power. The fire quickly spread to a two-story building containing both shops and apartments where many of the victims were found.
Haider Fadhil, a 25-year-old metal worker, said he was shopping with two friends when the blast hurled him to the ground.
"When I regained consciousness, I found that my left hand and leg were broken," Fadhil said from his bed in a nearby hospital, where anguished families wept as they jammed the waiting rooms. "Thanks be to God for saving me and thanks to those who carried me in their pickup truck to the hospital."
The blast was the deadliest attack in Baghdad since March 6, when a pair of bombs detonated in the mostly Shiite district of Karradah, killing 68 people and wounding about 120.
No group claimed responsibility for Tuesday's blast, and both Sunni and Shiite militants have used car bombs in their attacks.
The consumer inflation in China eased in May, official statistics showed on Thursday, reducing the pressure for harsher monetary tightening.
The consumer price index (CPI) grew 7.7 percent last month over a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said in a statement on its website, 0.8 percentage points lower than the decade-high growth of 8.5 percent in April.
While in line with economists' expectations, the figure is far higher than the official target of 4.8 percent for 2008, thus re-igniting stock investors' worries over a fresh round of monetary tightening.
They went into panic selling, pushing down the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index down 3.25 percent to close the morning session at 2,925.94 points.
That marked a loss of 12.13 percent in less than three sessions after the central bank hiked commercial banks' reserve ratio by 100 basis points to a record 17.5 percent during the weekend. It was the 15th increase in the percentage of deposits commercial banks must park with the central bank as reserves.
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Food prices, which account for one third of China's CPI, continued to be the key driver of the headline inflation, jumping 19.9 percent, according to the NBS. Non-food items rose 1.7 percent.
Among food items, meat prices surged 37.8 percent, with that of pork, a staple meat for the Chinese, rising 48 percent, while cooking oil price went up 41.4 percent.
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In spite of the hefty rise, food prices showed signs of moderating as they rose 22.1 percent year-on-year in April.
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Analysts expect the consumer inflation to continue the downward trend in the coming months. However, a spike in the wholesale inflation last month suggested the fight against inflation will remain an arduous task.
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The producer price index (PPI) accelerated to a three-year high of 8.2 percent in May on soaring energy prices, the NBS said on Wednesday. The PPI, which measures factory-gate prices, is believed to be a key leading indicator for the CPI and may lead to a rebound in consumer inflation.
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