The Muslim Times Editor for Pakistan
Credit: Xpress Tribune
QUETTA: The death toll from a bombing in Quetta has climbed to 80, a senior security official said on Sunday.
He said the figure could rise because 20 people were critically wounded in the attack on Saturday in Quetta’s main bazaar.
The powerful bomb in a water tanker ripped through a packed bazaar in Hazara town, an area dominated by Shias on the outskirts of Quetta at around 6:00 pm on Saturday.
Quetta city police chief Zubair Mehmood said the water tanker, which officials said was packed with some 800 kilograms of explosives, was placed near a pillar of a two-storey building, which collapsed in the blast.
“We fear that several people have been trapped inside. Rescue work is ongoing but I see very little chance of their survival,” Mehmood said.
Nasir said the bombing “was a sectarian attack, the Shia community was the target”.
A spokesman for the banned group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi claimed responsibility for the bombing.
Provincial home secretary Akbar Hussain Durrani said the dead and injured included women and children, and confirmed reports of people trapped under rubble at the site of the collapsed building. More