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The crack on Dalal Street widened as economic worries mounted with rising inflation and slowing growth. Soaring crude oil prices added to the woes. Investors dumped shares across the board, technology and capital goods counters being hammered the most. Second rung stocks were comparatively less affected.

At 2:40 pm, Bombay Stock Exchange's Sensex tumbled 3.48 per cent or 484 points to 13,441.40. The index swung in a range of 14,066.36 and 13,441.40. National Stock Exchange's Nifty lost 2.7 per cent or 112.30 points to 4049.90.

BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices were down 1.62 per cent and 0.99 per cent respectively.

Among frontline stocks, Jaiprakash Associates (-8.95%), Tata Consultancy Services (-6.19%), Larsen & Toubro (-5.87%), Infosys Technologies (-5.81%), Satyam Computer (-5.78%) and Reliance Infrastructure (-5.74%) were the worst hit.

Ambuja Cement (up 1.27%), Bharti Airtel (0.84%), Hindalco (0.75%) and HDFC Bank (0.23%) were the Sensex gainers.

Market breadth on BSE showed 1,613 declines and 948 advances. On NSE, there were 899 gainers and 337 losers.

Meanwhile, London Brent crude rose more than $2 to around $144 a barrel on Friday amid growing worries of threats to supplies from Nigeria and Iran, as well as concern over a Brazilian oil workers strike next week.