At least 55 people were killed in an air raid on a Baghdad market this evening, an Iraqi doctor said, giving details of casualties. Dr Osama Sakhari at Baghdad's Al Noor Hospital said he had counted 55 people killed and more than 47 wounded from the attack at the market in the city's Shula neighborhood.
Arabic language television stations Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya said searchers were looking for more victims, and showed pictures of people carrying coffins out of the hospital which was surrounded by large crowds.
Al-Jazeera's correspondent said: "An Iraqi official told us that the search is still going on for those trapped under the rubble." The television showed pictures of bodies, including those of two children.
Abu Dhabi television said U.S. cruise missiles may have hit the market and showed a gaping hole on one street and damaged cars.
The US military blamed an earlier explosion in a Baghdad residential area on an errant Iraqi missile.
Al Jazeera showed pictures of bodies at the scene and in the hospital. It also showed an Iraqi woman hitting herself in the face repeatedly as she stared through a window at a wounded young man lying in a hospital bed. A group of men shouted "There is no God but God" as they stood beside an ambulance.
A Reuters correspondent said a series of blasts hit the city after nightfall after US and British bombs and missiles had pounded the capital in the heaviest day of raids since the war began.
Earlier today, the Muslim holy day, residents said eight people died in a raid on a Baath party office.