Suicide blast kills at least 84 in Pakistan
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E-mail Xinhua, February 18, 2013
Death toll rose to 84 in the Saturday's suicide bombing that targeted a busy market in Pakistan's southwestern provincial capital of Quetta, the official said.
Hospital sources and police on Sunday confirmed the number of causalities adding that at least 173 were also injured including women and children in the suicide explosion that targeted the market at the Karani road in the Hazara town, an area dominated by the Shia Muslims.
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Fire rages from destroyed houses at the blast site in southwest Pakistan's Quetta on Feb 16, 2013. [Photo: Xinhua] |
The Deputy Inspector General of Police in Balochistan province, Wazir Khan told media that the powerful explosives were fitted in the hidden cavities of a tanker, which was driven to the busy market in the evening when people were busy in their routine shopping.
The suicide bomber exploded the tanker-bomb that killed at least 63 people on the spot and injured around 200 others besides causing a heavy loss of property in the market.
Soon after the incident, police, security forces and rescue teams rushed to the site but angry people of the Shia Hazara Community cordoned off the area and did not allow any of them to enter and started rescue work by themselves.
The raged people chanted slogans and pelted stones at the security personnel saying that the government machinery had failed to provide them with adequate security as they were targeted dozens of time in Quetta over the last two years in which hundreds of people lost their lives.
Later on, high officials of the government intervened in the situation through negotiations that convinced protesters to allow rescue teams to carry on operations at the affected site.
All the bodies and the injured were shifted to three hospitals of the city including Combined Military Hospital (CMH) and Bolan Medical Complex (BMC) where 21 of the injured succumbed to their injuries over the night increasing death toll to 84 including 15 women.
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