Baghdad savagery Blast toll rises to 30

Baghdad
Blast toll rises to 30
From correspondents in Hilla
February 28, 2005
THIRTY-two people have been killed and 45 wounded after a car bomb blew up in a crowd of civil servants gathered outside a medical centre in Hilla, south of Baghdad.

"The number of dead has reached 32 and the number of wounded has hit 45," Mohammed Dia, the head of Hilla general hospital, said.
"All the hospital's rooms, even those used for cardiology, are filled with the wounded," he said, adding many of the injured were in very serious condition.
The attack happened at 9:30 am (1730 AEDT) when a car parked near the medical centre blew up, police Lieutenant Kazem Mamoui said.
Civil servants had gathered for physical exams that would permit them to go to work for the state or return to jobs lost with the fall of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's regime in April 2003.

Ambulances rushed to the scene to transport the dead and wounded to the hospital, a correspondent reported.
The wreckage of the explosives-packed car lay in the street in a popular commercial district of Hilla, the capital of Babil province.
AFP