EIGHT explosions ripped through Mumbai's subways at peak hour last night, killing at least 190 people and injuring hundreds.

The eight struck during the busy evening rush hour Tuesday - as thousands packed trains for the journey home - killing 190 and injuring 625 in what officials said was a well-coordinated terrorist attack on the city, formerly called Bombay, which is India's financial centre.

The powerful explosive devices, which police think were hidden in luggage racks above commuter's heads, destroyed carriages, spewing charred and twisted metal and blood spattered debris and luggage across the rails.

The first blast came at 6.25pm local time. It burst open the first-class compartment of a train.

"The blast was so powerful that we thought we were hit by lightning," said Gopi Chand, a local shopkeeper.

"It shook our market. The fourth carriage was completely wrecked."

Six more explosions on trains and at two stations followed over a terrifying 20-minute period.

As darkness fell, Bombay's emergency services, rudimentary by Western standards for a city of 17 million people, struggled to get through the congested streets and driving monsoon rains to reach the dead and injured at the bomb sites.

The number of deaths rose inexorably in the hours after the attacks, which are the worst to have hit Bombay since August 1993 when 260 people were killed in a series of bomb attacks attributed to Muslim-dominated underground gangs.

Confirming that the deaths had exceeded 100, Bombay's police commissioner, AN Roy, said his men were working desperately to rescue the injured.

"Obviously a terrorist outfit is behind the blasts because a normal human being could not have done this," he added.

Business leaders were concerned that Bombay's benchmark Sensex stock exchange, already suffering losses over the past two months, would plunge still further when it reopens today.

Indian security sources said the attacks were clearly aimed at unsettling recent attempts to hold talks with separatist parties in Kashmir, the disputed border territory which has caused three wars between India and Pakistan since Partition in 1947.

Officials said the co-ordinated nature of the attacks bore the hallmarks of the Islamic extremist groups Lashkar-e-Toiba, or Army of the Righteous, and Jaish-e-Mohammad, or Army of Mohammed, which have been active recently in India.

The train bombings came only hours after eight people died in a series of grenade attacks in Srinagar, the capital of Indiancontrolled Kashmir.

However, fears that terrorist attacks like yesterday's could destabilise relations between Pakistan and India have eased considerably following a period of detente.

Pakistan, which came to the brink of a nuclear exchange with India in 2002 following a terrorist attack on the Indian parliament in December 2001, was quick to condemn the attacks as a "despicable act of terrorism".

As cities throughout India were put on high security alert, Manmohan Singh, the prime minister, called for calm after an emergency meeting at his official residence. He said: "We will work to defeat the evil designs of terrorists and will not allow them to succeed."

India's financial capital was left paralysed and in panic yesterday after a terrorist attack designed to cause maximum disruption to a city whose infrastructure is already woefully inadequate.

The seven devastating bombs were spread out along the entire length of Bombay's Western Expressway and the toll from the carefully co-ordinated attack was inevitably high.

The commuter rail route is a transport lifeline which is the backbone of one of the world's most congested cities and its trains are packed to the point where hundreds hang from doors and windows. Each day about six million people travel on Bombay's railways.

As police and rescue services struggled to reach the blast scenes through Mumbai's snarled, chaotic traffic, bystanders stepped up, pulling the wounded from the wreckage and bundling them into every available vehicle - from trucks to three-wheeled auto-rickshaws - for the race to the hospital. 

  Others wrapped bodies in railway blankets and carried them off the lines as the monsoon kept up a steady downpour. Later, police collected body parts in white plastic bags streaked with blood and rain.

Survivors were seen staggering around, clutching bloody bandages to their heads and faces.

Those who could, walked from the stations to local hospitals.

There, they found scenes chaos and carnage.

Doctors and volunteers wheeled in the injured and dead, one after the other.

"I can't hear anything. People around me didn't survive,'' said Shailesh Mhate, a man in his 20s, sitting on the floor of Mumbai's Veena Desai Hospital surrounded by bloody cotton bandages.

"I don't know how I did,'' he said holding his head in his hands.

Next to him a man wearing a tattered red and black stripped T-shirt and torn jeans lay unconscious, his face covered with blood.

Nearby, Param Singh lay on a bed, a blood-soaked bandage covering an empty eye socket, his face pockmarked by shrapnel wounds. Anxiously, the young man gave an attendant his father's telephone number. After 20 minutes they finally got through.

"I am OK, don't worry, I am safe,'' he said before handing the phone to a doctor and whispering,

"Don't tell him about the eye.''

Others desperately searched for loved ones.

"My friend from the office was in the other compartment. I don't know if he is injured,'' sobbed a woman who identified herself as Geeta, as she ran from ward to ward.

The bombings also brought Mumbai, India's entertainment and financial capital, to a virtual standstill.

As news spread throughout this city of 16 million people, frantic residents tried to call family and friends. The mobile phone network collapsed adding to the sense of panic.

With all train services suspended, thousands of people were stranded, unable to return home and with no way to let their families know where they were.

Terrorism has been increasing day by day...When this news was heard....securities were tightened all over the world...Investigations are going about the people involved in the bombay blasts..The people who were lucky enough survived but will not forget about the tragedy which took place....