Baghdad, Iraq ? A man with a bomb strapped to his waist walked up to a fuel tanker and detonated himself Saturday, setting off a roaring inferno in the crowded and cramped streets of an impoverished town south of Baghdad that killed at least 60 people.

The explosion ripped through the marketplace in the heart of the predominantly Shiite town of Mussayib when it was packed with families buying ice cream and shoppers who had come out as the worst of the day’s heat ebbed. Many had gathered at the nearby Shiite mosque around the time of the evening prayer, police sources in Mussayib and Baghdad said.

The warren of streets was so congested it was difficult for people to escape as fire raced through the surrounding buildings.

Local police told Baghdad officials of a hellish scene in which the flimsy houses behind the mosque almost immediately went up in flames and charred body parts lay scattered around the market and in surrounding streets.

“There was no electricity in the town, so people were coming out to get some air, eating ice cream to cool off,” said a police source in Baghdad, who asked not to be named because of security concerns.

Fuel tankers either outfitted with bombs or blown up by suicide bombers are among the most devastating of weapons because in addition to the power with which they fling shrapnel, they cause raging conflagrations.

The number of dead was expected to climb today because some of the 85 people wounded in the blast were seriously burned and unlikely to survive. The area is rural and there are few hospitals, let alone burn treatment facilities.

In the past week, more than 100 Iraqis have died in insurgent attacks, mostly in suicide bombings in the Baghdad area.

Meanwhile, in southern Iraq on Saturday, three British soldiers died and two were injured when a roadside bomb exploded near their vehicle. The incident occurred in Amara, the largest city in Maysun province, an area that repeatedly has proved dangerous for troops from Britain.

Britain’s Defense Ministry said the deaths brought to 92 the number of British troops who have died in Iraq, including 53 killed in action.

Maysun province has been the scene of several of the most brutal attacks targeting British forces. It was the scene of a particularly gruesome execution in 2003 when six British military police were cornered in the police station of a village and the room was peppered with bullets, killing all the men.

In May, two British soldiers were killed in separate attacks near Amara.

The British have about 8,500 troops in Iraq with responsibility for security in the southernmost provinces of the country.

The bombing and the attack on British troops were just two of the deadly incidents Saturday, which also included a suicide bombing that killed four police officers and the assassination of a community leader in the troubled northern city of Mosul.