A suicide truck bomber carrying an estimated one tonne of explosives rammed into the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad this evening killing at least 40 people, wounding nearly 200 and setting off a fire that raged through the hotel into the night.

The explosion created a crater 25 feet deep and 30 feet wide, destroyed the road in front of the building and sparked a fire that engulfed about two-thirds of the 290-room hotel. Police said several people were feared trapped in the inferno. Fearing the hotel could collapse, a team of Army engineers was rushed to the site to inspect the structural integrity of the building, police said.

For, the blast brought down the ceiling in a banquet room where there were about 200 to 300 people at a meal to break their Ramzaan fast.

President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, Army Chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and several other dignitaries were at the premier’s residence, located about half a kilometre away, for an iftar dinner at the time of the blast. Officials said the dignitaries had escaped unhurt. The Presidency, Supreme Court, Parliament and Pakistan Secretariat, which houses the offices of key ministries, are located along Constitution Avenue, in the Marriott’s neighbourhood.

The hotel has been bombed twice before — in January last year, a suicide bomber killed himself and a security guard in an attack at the hotel shortly before an official function to mark India’s Republic Day — but tonight’s blast was the most devastating in Islamabad since Pakistan joined the US-led campaign against Islamist militancy after 9/11.

... contd.