The death toll of a suicide car bomb among a crowd of construction workers in the holy Shiite city of Kufa on Tuesday rose to 57, an Interior Ministry source said.

"Our latest reports said that 57 people were killed and 93 others wounded in the suicide car bombing," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Earlier, a ministry source said that 45 people were killed and up to 65 others wounded when a suicide bomber detonated his explosive-laden vehicle at about 7:30 AM (03:30 GMT) near the holy Shiite mosque of Kufa, where dozens of construction workers gathered to wait for daily work.

The source said that ambulances and Iraqi security forces rushed to the scene to evacuate the victims.

Kufa, some 150 km south of Baghdad, is a stronghold of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Violence and sectarian strife have persisted despite the formation of a new unity government in the war-torn country in late May.

(Xinhua News Agency July 19, 2006)