Death toll rises in Nigeria's Kano blasts

Aljazeera

22 January 2012

Death toll rises in Nigeria's Kano blasts 

Medical sources say co-ordinated bombings and gunfire in country's second-largest city left at least 178 people dead.

The death toll from co-ordinated bombings and gunfire in the northern Nigerian city of Kano has risen to at least 178, medical sources said, making this the deadliest attack claimed by the radical Islamist group Boko Haram.

Gunfire continued to echo through some areas of Kano on Saturday, despite a strict curfew imposed on Friday night which will remain in place until further notice, local officials said.

A senior doctor in Kano's Murtala Mohammed hospital, citing records from his own and the other main hospital of Nasarawa, said: "We have 178 people killed in the two main hospitals.

"There could be more, because some bodies have not yet come in and others were collected early."

Meanwhile, two churches in the northern city of Bauchi were attacked early on Sunday morning, police said. There was no immediate confirmation of the number of people killed or hurt in those explosions.