COLOMBO: A string of blasts ripped through high-end hotels and churches holding Easter services in Sri Lanka on Sunday, killing at least 207 people, including 35 foreigners.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe condemned the attacks as "cowardly" and said the government was working to "contain the situation".
Images circulating on social media and local news stations showed extensive damage at one of three churches targeted in the near simultaneous blasts on Sunday morning.
Much of the church roof was blown out in the explosion, with roof tiles and wood littering the floor and pools of blood in between wounded worshippers.
The injured flooded into local hospitals, where officials reported hundreds of wounded were being admitted.
The nature of the blasts was not immediately clear and there were no immediate claims of responsibility.
But documents seen by AFP show that Sri Lanka's police chief Pujuth Jayasundara issued an intelligence alert to top officers 10 days ago, warning that suicide bombers planned to hit "prominent churches".
The first blast was reported at St Anthony's Shrine, a well-known Catholic church in the capital Colombo.
A second deadly explosion was then confirmed at St Sebastian's, a church in the town of Negombo, north of the capital.
At the Shangri-La hotel, an AFP photographer saw extensive damage on the second floor restaurant, with windows blown out and electrical wires hanging from the ceiling.
"Emergency meeting called in a few minutes. Rescue operations underway," Sri Lanka's Minister of Economic Reforms and Public Distribution, Harsha de Silva, said in a tweet.
He said he had been to two of the attacked hotels and was at the scene at St Anthony's Shrine, where he described "horrible scenes".
"I saw many body parts strewn all over," he tweeted, adding that there were "many casualties including foreigners".
"Please stay calm and indoors," he added.
