Dozens dead after blasts at mosques in Pakistan

QUETTA, Pakistan — A powerful bomb exploded in a crowd of people celebrating the Prophet Muhammad's birthday in southwestern Pakistan on Friday, killing at least 57 people and wounding nearly 70 others, authorities said. It was one of the deadliest attacks in recent years.

TV footage and videos on social media showed an open area near a mosque strewn with the shoes of the dead and wounded. Some of the bodies had been covered with bedsheets. Residents and rescuers were seen rushing the wounded to hospitals, where a state of emergency had been declared and appeals were being issued for blood donations.

The bombing occurred in Mastung, a district in Baluchistan Province.

Around 500 people had gathered for a procession from the mosque to celebrate the birth of the prophet, known as Mawlid an-Nabi, an occasion marked by rallies and the distribution of free meals.

Some of the wounded were in a critical condition, government administrator Atta Ullah said. Thirty bodies were taken to one hospital and 22 were counted at another, Abdul Rasheed, the district health officer in Mastung, said.

A senior police officer, Mohammad Nawaz, was among the dead, Ullah said. Officers were investigating whether the bombing was a suicide attack, he added.

Friday's bombing came days after authorities asked police to remain on maximum alert, saying militants could target rallies for Mawlid an-Nabi.

Also on Friday, a blast ripped through a mosque located on the premises of a police station in Hangu, a district in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, killing at least two people and wounding seven, said Shah Raz Khan, a local police officer.

He said the mud-brick mosque collapsed because of the impact of the blast and rescuers were pulling worshippers from the rubble. Police say it was not immediately clear what caused the blast.

No one claimed responsibility for the blast in Hangu, and the cause was unclear. About 40 people were praying at the mosque at the time, most of them police officers.

Pakistan's President Arif Alvi condemned the attacks and asked authorities to provide all possible assistance to the wounded and the victims' families.

In a statement, caretaker Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti denounced the bombing, calling it a "heinous act" to target people in the Mawlid an-Nabi procession.

The government had declared Friday a national holiday.

Agencies via Xinhua