Agence France Presse

Yangon, May 7:

Several dozen people were killed today when four near-simultaneous bomb explosions ripped through the Myanmar capital Yangon, witnesses at the blast sites and a Thai diplomat said.

“I counted as many as 20 people dead, some of them with their heads missing and their limbs missing,” a witness who survived the blast at the Dagon shopping centre in downtown Yangon told AFP.

A witness at a second blast site, at Junction 8 shopping centre 13 km north of the city centre, said she counted “at least 40 bodies being brought out of the building” where two bombs exploded at about 3:00 pm.

A bomb was also detonated at the Yangon Trade Centre which was hosting a Thai trade exhibition, killing at least three people, according to a Thai diplomat.

“At Yangon Trade Centre at least three people died and more than 10 people were injured, all Myanmar nationals,” the diplomat said. “But at Dagon shopping center tens of people died because it was crowded this afternoon,” she added.

An official in Myanmar’s military government confirmed four bombs were detonated today, but had no official word on the casualty count.

Staff at Yangon General Hospital said they were rapidly inundated with dead and wounded. “Yes, there are many casualties coming in now but we can not say exactly how many,” an emergency services worker at the hospital said.