TAMIL rebels destroyed Sri Lanka's financial centre with a huge bomb attack yesterday, killing at least 55 people and wounding more than 1,400, including foreign tourists, police and witnesses said.
Three members of the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) opened fire on guards at the high rise Central Bank building and then rammed in a truck laden with about 200kg (440lb) of plastic explosives, police said.
Hundreds of people, dazed and wounded by the blast, fled devastated office buildings as soldiers and rescue workers pulled the badly injured and the dead from the rubble. More than 400 cars were destroyed.
The government said two of the gunmen were arrested shortly after the attack in the central district of Colombo Fort.
"The government extends its deepest condolences to the families bereaved by this barbaric act of the LTTE," an official two page statement said, adding that a rocket propelled grenade launcher had also been used.
Police and hospital sources said 55 bodies were brought to the morgue at the Colombo General Hospital.
They said they expected the death toll to rise as rescue workers reached additional people trapped under the rubble.
More than 1,400 men and women, including foreign tourists, were admitted to hospital, about 400 of them suffering from minor injuries.
The government issued an urgent appeal for blood and asked doctors on leave to return to work immediately, while air force helicopters were called in to co ordinate the massive rescue operation, joined by military units and fire fighters from private banks and the air force.
As night fell, hundreds of people thronged hospitals and mortuaries in search of missing relatives and friends.
The Central Bank governor, Mr A.S. Jayawardena said that, although part of the bank had collapsed, it would shortly resume business with the help of an unnamed commercial bank.
The latest attack came despite a city wide alert for possible LTTE attacks following the army's capture of the rebels' northern bastion of Jaffna earlier last month.