mumbai : people advised to stay indoors

"people advised to stay indoors"

woke up to a txt msg 3am this morning asking if I was ok - been watching the news since. they're evacuating some people out the windows of the hotel now. one hotel is on fire - mumbai's landmark. it seems to have started about 9:30pm last night. shots still heard fired at one hotel about 10mins ago - hostages still held there - they rounded up the 'westerners'. hostages at cama hospital (women's & children's hospital) still too.

it's now 5:30am - this has been going on for about 7.5 hours! tv reports are repeating the info. but there's regular updates. a car even drove by and shot at the media. there's footage of one man's hand bleeding and the cameraman grabs his arm to move it so he can get a better shot of the blood - then he moves off to another view. hopefully someone actually helped the injured man instead of just filming him!!

update 6am : now they're reporting 87 people killed & over 200 people injured :(
I've just heard fire engines driving past my hotel so hopefully there's not more attacks nearby. so far the news channel (CNN / IBN ibnlive.com) is reporting 3 hotels + 1 hospital have been attacked. they've showed footage of the chief police (?) officer (ATS chief) arriving, putting on his helmet & bullet proof vest, then reporting he was shot in the chest/head (conflicting reports) and killed not long afterwards. apparently he's been under scrutiny since other recent attacks.

http://blip.tv/file/1512543

this is what the Taj Mahal Palace looked like a couple of weeks ago 15/11 when I was in the city :

I hope this little girl is ok - she's probably a regular at Gateway of India across the road from the Taj Mahal Palace. she'd given me flowers & didn't want money. unusual for tourist sites. my driver had shown me around the different places, including Leopold Cafe in Colaba.

more photos (of tv broadcasts) @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/aliak_com/tags/mumbai

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some of my photos were used in a now public news article.

other blog entry for this day : filming or helping?

links via twitter tweets :

Arun Shanbag's blog lives near the Taj hotel and has photos and blog posts of the event

Mumbai Help blog lists details of where to find help if you're in Mumbai

Vinu's flickr page has photos from the event also

Gaurav Mishra's Weblog has an article on Real Time Citizen Journalism in Mumbai Terrorist Attacks

a tweet even came through about a list of victims' names

twitter's #mumbai reported initially live reports, but then changed to delayed confirmed reports after police told media not to show live pictures / details in case the terrorists were watching / monitoring them

Boston's Big Picture website has images from the different sites

global voices mumbai coverage

wikipedia entry for mumbai attacks

bloggers :

children of bombay by Sonia Faleiro

a night out in mumbai by Amit Varma on india uncut

this city with arms wide open by Amit Varma on india uncut

Kafila.org - some of the Sarai people blogging on various issues including the Mumbai attacks

Mumbai:: What happened and why?

MUMBAI: BARKHA DUTT RESPONDS TO SOME QUESTIONS RAISED ON MEDIA COVERAGE

Shoddy reporting from Mumbai: Take Barkha Dutt off the air please ...

Righteous anger yes, but no bloodbath please... (a youth perspective)

NAPM STATEMENT ON MUMBAI TERROR ATTACK

Hotel Taj : icon of whose India ? Gnani Sankaran- Tamil writer, Chennai

As the Fires Die: The Terror of the Aftermath

questions about the terror attacks in Bombay

Mumbai Under Siege

Top ATS cops were trapped in one jeep

Mumbai terror, the revolt of the elites and Life itself

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update : 21/11/2009 broken ladder - another blog post of mine from 11/12/2008 when I was reading up about one of the guys who'd been involved in the attacks and was put in jail