At least 10 people were killed and some 40 others injured on Thursday in a truck bomb explosion at a busy livestock market in a town of Babil province, some 120 km south of Baghdad, a provincial police source said.

"A booby-trapped truck parked at a crowded livestock market in the town of Hamza, some 30 km southeast of provincial capital city of Hilla, detonated in the morning," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The toll could rise, the source said, as ambulances and civilian cars were transferring victims to nearby hospitals.

The Shiite dominated town was relatively calm in the past months, but deadly bombing frequently occur in Iraqi cities.

(Xinhua News Agency March 5, 2009)