Reports said the suicide car bomber drove into a crowd of people queued up for work at a government office in Hilla, about 96 km south of Baghdad. CNN quoted officials as saying most of the victims were Iraqi police recruits lining up outside the building for physicals.
Scores of bodies and severed limbs were reported scattered around the site after the explosion. The area has been cordoned off and ambulances were ferrying the injured to hospital, reports said.
A car bomb also exploded at a police checkpoint in Musayyib, about 40 miles south of Baghdad, killing at least one policeman and wounding several others, police said.
