surge update - Iraq Blast Toll Worse Than Feared, Including 30 Children

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BAGHDAD — As the flooding from broken water mains and sewers ebbed on Monday, workers pored over the wreckage from the Baghdad bomb blasts a day earlier, recovering still more bodies, including 30 children at a day-care center playground.

The official death toll climbed to 155, with more than 500 wounded.

The extent of the damage was even worse than initially feared, with three major government buildings destroyed rather than the two at first thought to have been targeted by Sunday’s pair of suicide vehicle bombs.

The first blast that gutted much of the Ministry of Justice also did similar damage to the Ministry of Municipalities and Public Works, located just across the street. The area had been sealed off from the press by authorities on Sunday. The second blast, which came a minute later, destroyed the Baghdad Provincial Council building a quarter-mile away.

Monday, workers were still hunting for victims inside the tangled debris of collapsed ceilings and walls inside those two seven-story high buildings.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/27/world/middleeast/27iraq.html?hp=&pagewanted=print