New Delhi  - A series of coordinated attacks by terrorists across India's financial hub Mumbai late on Wednesday killed at least 78 people, including three senior police officers, and left many more injured, officials and news reports said.

Groups of two to four heavily armed gunmen opened fire with automatic weapons and lobbed grenades in at least eight places in south Mumbai, including the five-star Taj and Trident hotels, the city's main railway terminus, a hospital and a cinema hall.

Armed gunmen were still holed up at the railway station and the Taj and Trident hotels, AN Roy, director general of police of Maharashtra state said. Mumbai is the capital of Maharashtra.

"We have surrounded them and an encounter is going on," Roy said. He said guests were being evacuated to safer places.

Roy would not confirm reports that several guests, many of them foreigners, had been taken hostage at the hotels.

The body of a foreign woman guest was recovered from the Taj Hotel, IANS news agency reported quoting police sources. She was not immediately identified and her nationality was not known.

At least 90 per cent of the 22-storey building on the waterfront facing the Arabian Sea was plunged into darkness as authorities cut off power in a precautionary measure.

Minutes later, bullets were fired near the Hotel Trident (previously known as Hotel Oberoi) - about a kilometre away from the Taj. At least 1,000 tourists were inside the hotel.

An eyewitness, who was at the Taj hotel, said on NDTV television that the gunmen were asking people with British and United States passports to identify themselves.

The federal government had dispatched 200 National Security Guard commandoes from capital Delhi to help Maharashtra police. The NSG are specially trained for hostage operations.

The army and navy have been kept on alert, India's federal Home Minister Shivraj Patil said. Army personnel were helping the police in their operation against the gunmen at the Trident hotel, NDTV reported.

Three senior police officials including Heman Karkare, chief of the Maharashtra state anti-terrorist squad, had been killed in encounters.

The total death toll so far was 78, a spokesperson for the Maharashtra government said.

Two suspected terrorists had been killed, and nine suspected terrorists had been arrested, police said.

A nationwide alert has been sounded and all airports put on high security surveillance.

There has been a quick succession of terrorist attacks in major cities in India since January. The last was in October, when 50 people died in serial terrorist bombings in the north-eastern state of Assam.

Mumbai Police Commissioner Hasan Ghafoor said Wednesday's attacks were suspected to be coordinated terrorist acts. He said the gunmen appeared to be using automatic weapons like AK-47s, AK-56s and semi- automatic rifles.

Mumbai's rail network was the target of serial bombings by terrorists in July 2006. At least 187 people were killed and more than 700 injured in those incidents. (dpa)