LAHORE
Pakistan - At least 60 people have been killed and scores of others injured in
an explosion at a park in the Pakistani city of Lahore, officials say.
It happened
in the early evening when the park was crowded with families.
Police told
the BBC it appeared to be a suicide bomb. No group has said it was behind the
blast.
All the
major hospitals in the area have been put on an emergency footing.
The
explosion appears to have been at the main gate to the Gulshan-e-Iqbal park in
an area where cars are usually left - and a short distance from the children's
swings.
Most of the
dead and injured are women and children, a senior local police officer told
Reuters news agency.
One
eyewitness said there was chaos, with a stampede breaking out and children
separated from their parents in the rush to escape.
Another man
told Pakistan's Geo TV station he was heading towards a ride with his wife and
two children when he heard a huge bang and all four of them were thrown to the
floor.
Hasan Imran,
30, a local resident who had gone to the park for a walk told Reuters:
"When the blast occurred, the flames were so high they reached above the
trees and I saw bodies flying in the air."
A health
adviser to the regional government said more than 280 people had been injured
and it was feared the number of dead would rise further.
The agency
also reported that the army was called in to control crowds outside the park.
Facebook has
activated its feature for people in Lahore to mark themselves as safe.
Lahore is
the capital of Punjab, Pakistan's largest and wealthiest province and the
political powerbase of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
The
country's President, Mamnoon Hussain, has strongly condemned the explosion and
the Punjab government has announced three days of mourning.
Nobel Peace
Prize winner and campaigner Malala Yousafzai tweeted that she was
"devastated by the senseless killing of innocent people in Lahore."
Pakistan has
suffered regular incidents of Taliban-related violence, sectarian strife and
criminal gang activity.
Courtesy:
BBC News