LOS ANGELES, May 6 (Xinhua) -- A terrorist attack similar to the 2004 commuter train bombings in Madrid would overwhelm already strained emergency services in U.S. cities, a newspaper report said on Tuesday.

    This was the conclusion by the Congress House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform which examined conditions at 34 hospitals in seven cities on an arbitrarily chosen date and time --March 25 at 4:30 p.m. -- to gauge how they could have handled a large influx of patients, the Los Angeles Times said.

    None of the hospitals surveyed in New York City, Chicago, Houston, Denver and Minneapolis had enough emergency beds, intensive-care beds and regular beds to treat the number of patients that arrived at Madrid hospitals, the report said.

    But Los Angeles and Washington D.C., had the most acute shortages, according to The Times.

    The emergency rooms at three of the five Los Angeles County hospitals surveyed were on diversion that afternoon, meaning they were turning away ambulances because there was no place to put new patients. In the other two hospitals combined, just six emergency beds were available, the survey found.

    Two of the five hospitals had no intensive care beds available, The Times reported, and on average, each had fewer than 30 regular beds free.

    The bombings in Madrid killed 177 and injured 2,000.