HILLAH, Iraq - Weeping and beating their chests, hundreds of Iraqis inspected corpses at a hospital morgue in Hillah today, looking for friends and relatives missing in a suicide bombing that killed at least 120 people, the single deadliest attack in the two-year insurgency.

The toll rose as hospital officials said at least five succumbed to wounds overnight. More than 140 others were injured in the blast, which targeted mostly Shiite police and National Guard recruits lined up for physicals at a medical clinic.

French journalist Florence Aubenas of the French daily Liberation appeared on a video pleading for help today, her first appearance since she went missing in Iraq on Jan. 5. The video was dropped at the offices of an international news agency in Baghdad. It was not possible to verify the tape's authenticity or when it was made.

In Baghdad, an Iraqi National Guard major was killed in a roadside bomb blast in the southern Doura neighborhood, Interior Ministry officials said.

Two unidentified corpses - one beheaded, the other with its hands tied - were found floating in the Tigris River in Wasit, 60 miles south of Baghdad, morgue officials in nearby Kut said.

Monday's bombing in Hillah presented the boldest challenge yet to Iraq's efforts to build a security force that can take over from the Americans.

Provincial Gov. Walid al-Janabi told reporters in Hillah that no funeral procession would be held in the city due to "security reasons." He did not elaborate, but police said they feared new attacks.

Authorities blocked hospital gates with barbed wire to stave off hundreds of victims' relatives desperate for information on loved ones.

Anxious for news of loved ones, they gathered around lists carrying the names of the dead and injured that were posted on hospital walls, screaming and wailing. They also went through victims' belongings, including identification cards, left in boxes nearby.

Distraught relatives at the hospital morgue placed the dead into coffins and loaded them onto pickup trucks, taking them to city mosques and homes where the bodies will be washed before burial, a Muslim tradition in Iraq.

Many of the dead will be taken to the holy Shiite city of Najaf for burial later today.