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Somber, smoky scene in Baghdad
(CNN) -- Hours after a truck bomb brought down part of the U.N.'s Baghdad headquarters in the Canal Hotel and killed at least 17 people, the scene remained smoky, somber and uncertain as people awaited information on relatives trapped in the rubble. Charcoal-colored plumes of smoke climbed into the air where helicopters hovered above the partially collapsed structure in which nearly four dozen had been wounded. Evacuation began soon after the 4:45 p.m. (8:45 a.m. ET) explosion, but Majid Al-Hamaidi, a driver for the World Bank, told The Associated Press, "Dozens of people I know are still under the ruins." U.N. employee Fouad Victor told Reuters, "Suddenly there was an explosion and everything fell down. There are lots of people inside because no one had gone home yet." Salim Lone, a U.N. spokesman, described a sense of helplessness during the ongoing attempt to rescue Sergio Vieira de Mello, the U.N. special representative to Iraq, who was hemmed in for hours and died in the rubble. Lone said de Mello was "very much trapped, and it has been agonizing. We've been trying all day to get him out." "I was with him two hours before he died, and we spent a wonderful two hours together. ... He was the man who could have really helped bring about the end of occupation," Lone said. "It is a very sad day for Iraq and for the United Nations and wherever there are people who are in conflict and strife because Secretary General Kofi Annan always chose him for the most difficult missions." Lone told Reuters, "All this happened right below the window of Sergio Vieira de Mello. I guess it was targeted for that. It was a pretty huge bomb. His office and those around it no longer exist; it's all rubble." Body bagsA U.N. worker in Baghdad, Tharer al-Tikriti, said he had counted 15 white body bags taken from the collapsed building, where about 300 people worked. "There were foreigners and Iraqis inside (the body bags)," al-Tikriti said. L. Paul Bremer, the top U.S. official in Iraq, walked through the scene of the destruction as workers, covered with blood, were manually digging through the rubble trying to find people. There was a 50-foot-wide (15 meters) hole in the ground. Bernard Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner who is rebuilding the Iraqi police force, told reporters that evidence suggested the attack was a suicide bombing. "There was an enormous amount of explosives in what we believed to be a large truck," Kerik added. People who escaped the rubble described the blast and wondered about the fate of their coworkers. "I was sitting in the cafeteria and heard an explosion. Everything came down on our head, I can't find my colleagues and I'm worried about them," said U.N. employee Alice Yacoub. One wounded man had a yard-long, inch-thick aluminum rod driven into his face just below his right eye. He was able to speak and identified himself as a security consultant for the International Monetary Fund, saying he had just arrived in Iraq over the weekend. The force of the blast, which knocked out windows up to a mile (two kilometers) away from the scene, destroyed several cars. Begging for deathOutside, beneath the whir of helicopters, CNN Baghdad correspondent Jane Arraf talked about the confusion and distress of Iraqis worried about their relatives. "It is a chaotic situation. There's a combination of U.S. soldiers keeping people away and people who want to come close to the building because they are relatives of U.N. workers. ...They still may be trapped inside the building," Arraf said. As ambulances streamed back and forth to the building, Kerik repeatedly entered the building and left always looking grim, Arraf said, but he refused to comment on conditions in the building. Traffic backed up for miles and the throng of people continued to balloon as dusk fell. Arraf reported that when she arrived, people were screaming and crying. "One woman, who was drenched in water ... told us that she actually begged the soldiers to shoot her, " Arraf said. "She said she did not want to live like this. She did not want to live in a country like this. This particular woman has lost part of her family before ... and she says now she is waiting for her niece, who may be trapped inside." Annan said he hoped those responsible for the attack would be brought quickly to justice. "All of us at the United Nations are shocked and dismayed by today's attack, in which dozens of our colleagues have been injured" and an unknown number killed, said Annan, on vacation in northern Europe, in a statement issued in New York. The Associated Press & Reuters contributed to this report.
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