Karbala, April 14 (Reuters): A suicide car bomber killed at least 40 people and wounded 128 at a crowded bus station near a major Shia shrine in the Iraqi holy city of Karbala today, police and hospital sources said.

In Baghdad, police said a suicide car bomber detonated his device near a checkpoint at the southern Jadriyah bridge, killing 10 people, wounding 15 and burning several cars in the second major attack on a bridge in the capital in the past three days. Television footage of the aftermath of the Karbala explosion showed a distraught man carrying the charred body of a small child, while witnesses said the blast sent body parts flying into the air.

“I suddenly heard a horrifying explosion. I had never expected that Karbala would see an explosion of that size because it is a safe city,” said Ali Mussawi, 30, a store owner who was 50 metres from the blast site. Shortly afterwards, Iraqi police fired into the air to disperse protesting crowds who blamed local authorities for failing to provide security. US helicopters buzzed over Karbala, one of the holiest cities in Iraq.

A police source put the death toll in Karbala, 110 km southwest of Baghdad, at 65. But Khaled al-Rubaie, media director of al-Husseini hospital in Karbala, said 41 people had been killed and 128 wounded, many of them women and children. Salim Katham, media director of Karbala’s health directorate, said 32 people were killed and 58 wounded.

The attack occurred near a crowded market 200 metres from the Imam Hussein shrine, where the grandson of Prophet Mohammad is buried — one of the most important sites for Shias. Television footage of today’s bombing at the bridge in Baghdad showed the twisted wreck of what was thought to have been the car used to deliver the bomb.