Not much is known about the NTJ, a radical group that has been linked to the vandalising of Buddhist statues.

Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena said he would seek foreign assistance to track down international terrorist links.

“The intelligence reports [indicate] that foreign terrorist organisations are behind the local terrorists. Therefore, the president is to seek the assistance of the foreign countries,” he said in a statement.

The president said he would also declare a nationwide emergency that will go into effect at midnight.

Sri Lankan government forensic crime analyst Ariyananda Welianga said an assessment of the attackers’ body parts collected from the scenes showed that the attacks were coordinated suicide bombings.

Four of the bombs went off at roughly the same time, at 8.45am, with two others coming within 20 minutes. The explosions at the fourth hotel and the house occurred hours later in the afternoon.

Welianga said two people were involved in the attack at the Shangri-La Hotel. One bomber each attacked the Cinnamon Grand and Kingsbury hotels and St Anthony’s Shrine in Colombo, St Sebastian’s church in the city of Negombo and Zion Church in the city of Batticaloa.

“Guests who had come for breakfast were lying on the floor, blood all over,” said a Kingsbury Hotel employee. “We just picked up everyone, dead or alive and evacuated them.”

Police said on 24 people had so far been arrested over the attacks. While there had not been any immediate claim of responsibility, documents showed that 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”.

“A foreign intelligence agency has reported that the NTJ [National Thowheeth Jama’ath] is planning to carry out suicide attacks targeting prominent churches as well as the Indian high commission in Colombo,” the alert said.

The NTJ is a radical Muslim group in Sri Lanka that was linked last year to the vandalisation of Buddhist statues.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe acknowledged that “information was there” about possible attacks and that an investigation would look into “why adequate precautions were not taken”.

Telecommunications Minister Harin Fernando tweeted: “Some intelligence officers were aware of this incidence. Therefore there was a delay in action. Serious action needs to be taken as to why this warning was ignored.”

He said his father had even heard of the possibility of an attack and had warned him not to enter popular churches.

Mano Ganeshan, the minister for national integration, said the security officers within his ministry had been warned by their division about the possibility two suicide bombers would target politicians.

Police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara said the Criminal Investigation Department investigating the blasts will look into the reports.

Sri Lankan authorities also said Monday they had successfully defused another bomb close to Colombo’s main airport.

A police source said a locally manufactured “home-made” pipe bomb had been found late Sunday on a road leading towards the main terminal, exacerbating disruptions at the Bandaranaike International airport.

“It was a crude six-foot pipe bomb that was found by the roadside,” an air force spokesman said. “We have removed it and safely defused it at an air force location.”

In the aftermath of the attacks, Sri Lanka’s government blocked social media access to prevent “wrong information” from spreading in the country of 21 million people. The US State Department issued a revised travel warning that said “terrorist groups” were continuing to plot possible attacks.

“Terrorists may attack with little or no warning,” it said in the revised warning. The warning level was set at two on a scale where four means do not travel.

Possible targets included tourist locations, transportation hubs, shopping malls, hotels, places of worship, airports and other public areas, it said.

Of the 290 who were killed, police said at least 37 were foreigners, including Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Australian and Danish nationals.

Australia’s prime minister on Monday said two Australian citizens died and another two were injured.

Denmark’s richest man Anders Holch Povlsen and his wife lost three of their four children who were on holiday in Sri Lanka.

Two Chinese citizens were killed and another five were seriously injured in the attack. The Chinese Embassy in Sri Lanka had contacted the families of the deceased, People.com.cn reported.

Five other Chinese nationals remained missing. They were students from the Ministry of Natural Resources’ First Institute of Oceanography who were reportedly going to take part in a study in the Indian Ocean.

“It is an annual scientific expedition programme and they were on the way to replace the 10 others who had completed their rotation,” a staff member told the Beijing News. “Some sustained bruises on the leg and one could hardly hear after the blast.”

Among the churches targeted was the historic St Anthony’s Shrine, a Catholic Church in Colombo, where the blast blew out much of the roof.

Bodies lay on the ground of the church, covered in patterned scarves and white sheets, some of them stained with blood.

Shattered roof tiles and shards of glass littered the floor, along with chunks of plaster blasted from the walls by the explosion.

Sri Lanka’s Minister of Economic Reforms, Harsha de Silva, described “horrible scenes” at St Anthony’s church. “I saw many body parts strewn all over,” he tweeted.

Witness NA Sumanapala was near the church when the blast happened.

“I ran inside to help. The priest came out and he was covered in blood,” he said. “It was a river of blood.”

A manager at the Cinnamon Grand, near the prime minister’s official residence in Colombo, said a suicide bomber blew himself up at the hotel’s restaurant.

“He came up to the top of the queue and set off the blast,” the manager said.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe urged people to “hold our unity as Sri Lankans” and pledged to “wipe out this menace once and for all”.

Meanwhile, there were chaotic scenes at Colombo airport as worried travellers who had just arrived in the country formed a huge queue at the only taxi counter that was open, and watched a television screen for updates.

Kishu Gomes, chairman of the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority, said holidaymakers were flocking back to the airport, cutting short their vacations in the wake of the blasts.

He could not give an exact count of the number of people leaving, but it could run into the thousands. Tour operators in India, the biggest source market for visitors to Sri Lanka, were also cancelling trips for clients, he said.

Ethnic and religious violence has plagued Sri Lanka for decades, with a 37-year conflict with Tamil rebels followed by an upswing in recent years in clashes between the Buddhist majority and Muslims.

Catholics make up around 6 per cent of the island nation’s population, which is a patchwork of different religious and ethnic groups dominated by Buddhist Sinhalese.

While there have been attacks on Christians, their community had been left relatively unscathed until now.

Rucki Fernando, a Christian Sri Lankan, said: “We haven’t experienced anything like this in the last 10 years.”

“There is a lot of fear, not just in the Christian community, but among everyone,” he added.

Reporting by Agence France-Presse, Reuters, Associated Press and Bloomberg

“I can confirm that three children have been killed,” Jesper Stubkier, the communications manager for Bestseller, said in a statement.

“We ask you to respect the privacy of the family and we therefore have no further comments.”

Considered Denmark’s richest man, Holch Povlsen, 46, is the main shareholder in the online fashion retailer Asos as well as the owner of Bestseller.

He inherited Bestseller from his parents, who founded the firm in 1975.

The group, which includes brands such as Vero Moda, Only and Jack & Jones, has more than 3,000 stores in 70 countries.

In addition to the majority stake in Britain-based Asos, Holch Povlsen also owns an interest in its German rival Zalando.

The billionaire also describes himself as “one of Scotland’s largest landowners” on the website of Wildland, the company he uses to buy and preserve Scottish property.

“We wish to restore our parts of the (Scotland) Highlands to their former magnificent natural state and repair the harm that man has inflicted on them,” Holch Povlsen and his wife say on the website.

“There are many vulnerable properties across all of the holdings that we have the wonderful and privileged opportunity to rehabilitate and restore to life.”

Sri Lankan officials said on Monday they believe that the local Islamist extremist group National Thowfeek Jamaath (NTJ) was behind the attacks.

The vast majority of the victims were believed to be Sri Lankan citizens, many of the members of the island nation’s Christian minority. Names of many victims and other details on their lives were slow to come in and difficult to report, in part because Sri Lankan authorities blocked most social media after the blasts.

Local officials say that more than 30 foreign tourists, from at least 11 countries, died in the attacks. These include at least eight British citizens, eight Indian nationals, four from Spain, two Australians, four Americans, one Chinese citizen and two Swiss nationals.

The Netherlands, Japan and Portugal have also confirmed their nationals were among the dead.

Additional reporting by Associated Press

The first six explosions were reported within a short period in the morning just as churches were beginning their Easter Sunday services and hotel guests ate breakfast.

They were followed by two blasts about two hours later – one near a zoo and another in suburban Colombo.

One of the initial explosions in the capital Colombo was at St ­Anthony’s Shrine, a Catholic church in ­Kochchikade – a popular tourist spot.

Police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekera said the death toll was at least 207, with more than 450 people wounded. Eight people had been arrested.

Ravinatha Aryasinha, secretary to the foreign ministry, told reporters there were 27 bodies of suspected foreign nationals in the Colombo National Hospital.

Hospital sources said British, Dutch and American citizens had been killed, with Britons and­ Japanese also injured. Beijing media reported two Chinese citizens were among the dead.

Sri Lanka’s Minister of Economic Reforms and Public Distribution, Harsha de Silva, said he had been to two of the attacked hotels and was at the scene at St Anthony’s, where he described “horrible scenes”.

“I saw many body parts strewn all over,” he tweeted, adding that there were “many casualties including foreigners”.

There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the blasts, but documents seen by AFP show that 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”.

“A foreign intelligence agency has reported that the NTJ [National Thowheeth Jama’ath] is planning to carry out suicide attacks targeting prominent churches as well as the Indian high commission in Colombo,” the alert said. The NTJ is a radical Muslim group in Sri Lanka that was linked last year to the vandalisation of Buddhist statues.

The first blast was reported at St Anthony’s, followed by a ­second deadly explosion at St ­Sebastian’s in Negombo.

Witnesses at St Anthony’s saw bodies lying on the floor, some draped with scarves and clothes.

Much of the church roof was blown out in the explosion, with roof tiles, glass and splintered wood littering the floor along with pools of blood. N. A. Sumanapala was at his shop near the church when the blast happened. “I ran inside to help. The priest came out and he was covered in blood,” he said.

Soon after, police confirmed a third church in the east-coast town of Batticaloa had been hit, along with three high-end hotels in the capital – the Cinnamon Grand, the Shangri-La and the Kingsbury.

Later in the afternoon, two died in a strike at the Tropical Inn hotel in the south of Colombo, while a police source said a ­suicide bomber killed three ­officers in the suburb of Dematagoda in the north of the capital.

President Maithripala Sirisena said he was shocked by the explosions and appealed for calm.

On Twitter, Wickremesinghe – who visited St Anthony’s Shrine late yesterday – wrote: “I strongly condemn the cowardly attacks on our people today. I call upon all Sri Lankans during this tragic time to remain united and strong.”

United States President Donald Trump tweeted his condolences on the “horrible terrorist attacks”, and Pope Francis in his Easter address at the Vatican spoke of his “affectionate closeness with the Christian community, attacked while it was at prayer”.

Embassies in Colombo warned their citizens to shelter in place, and Sri Lankan Airlines told customers to arrive at the airport four hours ahead of flights because of ramped-up security.

Agence France-Presse, Reuters, The Washington Post

The Hong Kong Immigration Department said it had not received any requests for help from Hong Kong tourists in the aftermath of the deadly bombings, which targeted three churches and three hotels popular with foreign visitors.

The Chinese Embassy in Sri Lanka had earlier said four Chinese nationals were hospitalised and in a stable condition, suffering from undisclosed injuries sustained in the explosions in Colombo.

State-run newspaper China Daily said that two Chinese nationals were dead. It is unclear if the deceased were among those reported injured earlier.

The Chinese embassy activated its emergency response plan to the bombings and was checking the locations and conditions of Chinese nationals, the statement said.

China is the second biggest source of tourists for Sri Lanka. Last year, about 265,000 visitors came from the mainland, or about 11.5 per cent of total tourists, according to the Sri Lankan Tourism Development Authority. A breakdown of tourist numbers for Hong Kong was not available.

Cathay Pacific flew 58,427 passengers into the country in 2017, according to the Sri Lankan tourist board.

Local television footage showed devastation across the country and at the Cinnamon Grand, Shangri-La and Kingsbury hotels in Colombo.

Cathay Pacific aircrew stays at the nearby Movenpick Colombo hotel.

Hong Kong authorities said they had not received requests for help from citizens through its special hotline set up to handle overseas events, such as natural disasters or terror attacks.

“[The] Hong Kong Immigration Department has not received a request for help,” a spokesman for the Immigration Department said.

Cathay Pacific Airways, which operates a daily service between Hong Kong and the capital Colombo, offered condolence over the attacks.

“All overnighting crew in Colombo have been accounted for and are safe. Safety is in the consideration of everything we do and we will watch the situation closely,” an airline spokeswoman said.

The company issued special ticketing arrangements for passengers travelling up to April 23, and has offered to postpone or divert to an alternative destination for free for travel on or before May 10. Travellers can also cancel tickets and get a refund, but fees and charges would apply.

Sri Lanka, home to 21.5 million people, was plunged back into chaos on Sunday after a near decade of peace following a long-running civil war.

The island nation is popular with foreign visitors for its balmy climate, golden sandy beaches and countryside tea plantations.

The country was destabilised last year after President Maithripala Sirisena sacked his prime minister, triggering political turmoil and denting tourism numbers.

Additional reporting by Zhou Xin