A suicide bomber detonated a car near police recruits and a crowded market south of Baghdad today, killing 125 people and wounding 148 in the single bloodiest attack in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein.
A man looks at the blood splattered walls near the scene after a suicide car bombing in Hilla today
The bomber blew the car up next to a line of recruits waiting at a health centre to take an eye test so they could join the Iraqi police force in the town of Hilla, 100 km (62 miles) south of the capital, witnesses said.
Many of those killed were across the road, and were caught in the blast as they shopped at stalls in the morning sunshine.
Television footage showed a pile of bloodied bodies outside the building.
Smoke rose from the wreckage of burnt-out market stalls as bystanders loaded mangled corpses on to rickety wooden carts, usually used to carry fruit and vegetables.
Others, their limbs ripped to shreds, were piled into the back of pick-up trucks. Nearby buildings were pockmarked by shrapnel.
People wept, clutched their heads in despair and shouted "God is greatest" as rescuers led the injured away.
"The suicide bomber came from a nearby alleyway," said Mr Zeyd Shamran, who said he saw the blast. "It was a grey Mitsubishi. There were two people in it and when it stopped one man got out, shook hands and kissed the other man." Moments later the car exploded, he said.
An official in Hilla's health directorate said the death toll was 125 and could rise.
The official said existing patients had been moved out of hospitals to make way for victims of the blast.
More than 30 doctors rushed to the city from nearby towns to treat the wounded and the Iraqi Red Crescent Society said it had sent emergency aid and medics to Hilla from Baghdad to help.
The toll is the highest from a single attack since the fall of Saddam in April 2003, and makes Monday one of the bloodiest days of the two-year insurgency.
The carnage came as Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi acknowledged Iraq's security forces were still unable to take on the insurgency without the help of US-led troops.
"Iraqis should be able to start taking over more and more security responsibilities very soon," he wrote in the Wall Street Journal. "But we will continue to need and to seek assistance for some time to come."