BLEEDING and burnt children, women and men started arriving at Kandahar hospital early yesterday. They were ferried by truck, taxi and minibus -- any vehicle that withstood the coalition bombardment of their village in southern Afghanistan.

"Oh my God, they killed my kids. I left them behind," wept 60-year-old Attah Mohammed in anguish, tears streaming down his silver beard.

"They've killed innocent people."

Mohammed brought in eight relatives, some of whom were struggling for their lives in the operating theatre, but his thoughts were for the 24 dead he left behind.

Coalition warplanes started dropping bombs on his village in the Panjwayi district of Kandahar province around midnight on Sunday, he said, his shaking hands still smeared with blood.

"God may take my revenge on them," Mohammed said, as people gathered around him in the grounds of the hospital. "They took everyone from me."

The bombing came as a major spike in violence left more than 250 people killed in Afghanistan since last Wednesday, more than the number reported killed in Iraq during the same period.

The US-led coalition said that the strike targeting "individuals suspected of terrorist and anti-Afghanistan activities" killed up to 80 Taliban.

It said it was investigating the reports of civilian casualties.

The coalition said 20 Taliban fighters were confirmed killed with another 60 unconfirmed fatalities.

Sixteen civilians were killed and 16 were wounded, provincial governor Asadullah Khalid said at the hospital where he distributed about $132 to each of the wounded.

Only those who could find a working vehicle had been able to make the 35km journey to Kandahar for help, with many left behind, shocked villagers said at the hospital.

Some were on their way, they said, as doctors in blood-splattered white uniforms hurried through the wards.

Authorities had refused to allow ambulances into the stricken area, said one doctor. "It was relentless," the 38-year-old said as he waited outside the hospital for word on the fate of his wounded cousin.

"It was exactly the same as when the Russians were bombing us."