"People were being dragged out," said Bhanuka Harischandra, of Colombo, a 24-year-old founder of a technology marketing company who was going to the city's Shangri-La Hotel for a meeting when it was bombed. "People didn't know what was going on. It was panic mode." He added: "There was blood everywhere." Prime Minister Ranil Wickremsinghe said the government had some "prior information of the attack" but there was an inadequate response from emergency services and the military. Loading He called for an inquiry into how the information was used, and also said the government needs to look at the international links of a local militant group.

French agency Agence France-Presse reported it had seen documents showing 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". He cited a foreign intelligence service as reporting that a little-known Islamist group was involved. A Sri Lanka police spokesman said he was not aware of the intelligence report. Loading Most of those killed were Sri Lankans. But the three hotels and one of the churches, St Anthony's Shrine, are frequented by foreign tourists, and Sri Lanka's Foreign Ministry said the bodies of at least 27 foreigners from a variety of countries were recovered. Officials said 32 foreigners have died and 30 were injured. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade confirmed one Australian had been injured in the bombings, but did not disclose the severity of the person's injuries for privacy reasons.

While the department had not received reports of Australian fatalities, a spokesperson said the Australian High Commission in Colombo was continuing to make "urgent enquiries" with local authorities to work out if any more Australians had been affected. The US said "several" Americans were among the dead, while Britain, China and Portugal said they, too, lost citizens. Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video The Sri Lankan government imposed a nationwide curfew from 6pm to 6pm and blocked Facebook and other social media, saying it needed to curtail the spread of false information and ease tension in the country of about 21 million people. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said he feared the massacre could trigger instability in Sri Lanka, and he vowed to "vest all necessary powers with the defense forces" to take action against those responsible.

The Archbishop of Colombo, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, called on Sri Lanka's government to "mercilessly" punish those responsible "because only animals can behave like that." Police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara said at least 207 people were killed and 450 wounded. He said police found a safe house and a van used by the attackers. An overnight curfew and social media blackout was put in place in Sri Lanka to avoid further violence and aid investigation. Credit:AP The scale of the bloodshed recalled the worst days of Sri Lanka's 26-year civil war, in which the Tamil Tigers, a rebel group from the ethnic Tamil minority, sought independence from the Buddhist-majority country. The Tamils are Hindu, Muslim and Christian. Sri Lanka, situated off the southern tip of India, is about 70 per cent Buddhist. While there have been scattered incidents of anti-Christian harassment in recent years, there has been nothing on the scale of what happened on Sunday.

There is also no history of violent Muslim militants in Sri Lanka. However, tensions have been running high more recently between hard-line Buddhist monks and Muslims. Two Muslim groups in Sri Lanka condemned the church attacks, as did countries around the world, and Pope Francis expressed condolences at the end of his traditional Easter Sunday blessing in Rome. Loading "I want to express my loving closeness to the Christian community, targeted while they were gathered in prayer, and all the victims of such cruel violence," Francis said. Six nearly simultaneous blasts took place in the morning at the shrine and the Cinnamon Grand, Shangri-La and Kingsbury hotels in Colombo, as well as at two churches outside Colombo, according to a Sri Lankan military spokesman, Brigadier Sumith Atapattu.

After a lull of a few hours, two more blasts occurred just outside Colombo, one of them at a guesthouse, where two people were killed, the other near an overpass, Atapattu said. Loading Also, three police officers were killed during a search at a suspected safe house on the outskirts of Colombo when its occupants apparently detonated explosives to prevent arrest, authorities said. A large pipe bomb was found on the road to the main Colombo airport and denotade by experts, the Sri Lankan Air Force said. The Shangri-La's second-floor restaurant was gutted, with the ceiling and windows blown out. Loose wires hung down and tables were overturned in the blackened space. From outside the police cordon, three bodies could be seen covered in white sheets.

Foreign tourists hurriedly took to their mobile phones to text family and loved ones that they were OK. Visitors from around the world come to Sri Lanka to see elephants, tea plantations, ancient Buddhist monuments and other sights. "I had a sense that the country was turning the corner, and in particular those in the tourism industry were hopeful for the future," said tourist Peter Kelson, a technology manager from Sydney. "Apart from the tragedy of the immediate victims of the bombings, I worry that these terrible events will set the country back significantly." Locals who work in Sri Lanka's vital tourism industry were shocked and upset by the bloodshed. "After so many years, we've started again," said Gamini Francis, 56, a long-time hotel worker. "A lot of people are going to lose their jobs. 100 per cent sure. It's tragic. Crazy people killing innocent people." Sri Lankan forces defeated the Tamil Tiger rebels in 2009, ending a civil war that took over 100,000 lives, with both sides accused of grave human rights violations.