PANIC RIPPLED through Pakistan’s commercial capital, Karachi, yesterday after twin explosions targeting a religious procession and a major hospital killed at least 19 people and injured at least 75.
The first blast occurred on a major road when a bomb ripped through a bus carrying minority Shias in a religious procession, killing at least 12 people. Early reports suggested the bomb was planted on a parked motorcycle.
An hour later a second explosion occurred outside the emergency ward of the city’s Jinnah hospital, where the injured were arriving from the first blast. At least seven people were killed and 25 injured. The toll is set to rise.
The violence, blamed on sectarian extremists, triggered pandemonium. Television pictures showed emotional Shia mourners beating themselves amid clouds of dust outside the attacked hospital. Three ambulances were destroyed.
Hospital officials rushed to move the dead and injured to other city hospitals.
Abdul Sattar Edhi, head of the Edhi Foundation and Pakistan’s most famous charity worker, said he narrowly escaped injury. Vehicles entering other hospitals were checked for explosives.
The sprawling metropolis of 18 million people has suffered from instability since a similar attack on a Shia procession on December 28th that killed 45 people and wounded several hundred.– (Guardian service)