Twin blasts hit central Nigerian city of Jos

Two explosions hit a bus terminal and market frequented by thousands of people in Nigeria's central city of Jos on Tuesday afternoon, killing at least 118 people, sources confirmed to Al Jazeera. 

The blasts could be heard miles away, and eyewitnesses said the twin blasts tore through a busy intersection in between the main market and a university teaching hospital as well as the main bus station of the town. The second blast came half an hour after the first, killing some of the rescue workers who had rushed to the scene, which was obscured by billows of black smoke.

Dozens of bodies and body parts were covered in grain that had been loaded in the second car that exploded, witnesses said. A Terminus Market official said he helped remove 50 casualties, most of them dead. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not allowed to give information to reporters.

"It's horrifying, terrible," said Mark Lipdo of the Stefanos Foundation, a Christian charity based in Jos, told The Associated Press. 

President Goodluck Jonathan condemned the blasts, calling the perpetrators "cruel and evil." 

"The government remains fully committed to winning the war against terror, and this administration will not be cowed by the atrocities of enemies of human progress and civilization," he said in a statement emailed by his office.

While there was no immediate claim of responsibility, suspicion about who perpetrated the attack is likely fall on Boko Haram. Tuesday's explosions come amid a bombing campaign by the Nigerian armed group, which has recently drawn global attention and condemnation after kidnapping and then threatening to sell nearly 300 schoolgirls into slavery.

The girls were seized more than a month ago from a remote town in the northeast that is the traditional stronghold of Boko Haram, which wants to turn northeastern Nigeria into an Islamic state ruled by fundamentalist Shariah law. Half of Nigeria's population of 170 million is Christian.

Jos is in Nigeria's middle belt region in Plateau state, which divides the country into the predominantly Muslim north and Christian south. The city has been the scene of some of the worst sectarian violence in Nigeria in recent years. On Christmas Eve in 2010, bombs allegedly planted by Boko Haram exploded in Jos, killing as many as 80 people. 

Meanwhile, a suicide car bomber killed 25 people in northern Kano city on Monday, and police there detonated a second car bomb the same day. Police said both would have killed many people but the first exploded before it reached its target of restaurants and bars in the Christian quarter of the Muslim city.

The attacks have been coming with increasing frequency and deadliness despite a year-old military state of emergency to curtail the uprising.

More than 300 people have been killed in assaults on towns and villages in recent weeks, and the extremists also are blamed for an attack on a Chinese camp in neighboring Cameroon last week in which one Cameroonian soldier was killed and 10 Chinese workers abducted.

Militants' attacks have been coming with increasing frequency despite a year-old military state of emergency in three of Nigeria's states to curtail the uprising.

Also on Tuesday, the Nigerian Senate voted to extend the emergency for another six months but only if Jonathan devoted more money to the military campaign and to better arming demoralized soldiers who say Boko Haram is better equipped. A letter with the conditions was sent to the president.

More than 2,000 people have been killed in the insurgency this year, compared to an estimated 3,600 between 2010 and 2013.

Mohammed Adow contributed to this report from Abuja, with Al Jazeera and wire services