Pakistan Feature: At Least 84 Killed in Bomb in Quetta (Al Jazeera English)
Sunday, February 17, 2013 at 8:40A bomb in southwestern Pakistan has killed at least 84 people and left more than 200 others injured, rights activists and officials say.
The death toll rose on Sunday, after more bodies were pulled overnight from the rubble left in the wake of the explosion, officials said.
Local community leaders told Al Jazeera that rescue workers and victims' families were still identifying bodies, and that the death toll was likely to rise further.
The improvised explosive device, which was attached to a vehicle outside a vegetable market in Quetta, targeted Pakistan's minority Shia population.
The vehicle was packed with about 800kg of explosives, and caused nearby buildings to collapse, officials said.
Activists say women and children were shopping for groceries in the Hazara Town enclave at the time of the attack.
"Rescuers and volunteers are hesitant to go near the blast site for fear of another explosion", Haider Changezi, a Shia Muslim activist in Pakistan, told Al Jazeera at the time of the explosion.
The fear of follow-up attacks targeting the Hazara Shia population comes a month after twin blasts killed at least 90 people on Alamdar Road, another mainly Hazara area of the provincial capital of Balochistan.
Many of the wounded were in critical condition, hospital officials said, leading to fears that the death toll could rise still further.
Al Jazeera's Imtiaz Tyab, reporting from Islamabad, said the entire area of the attack in Hazara Town has been cordoned off by security officials.
Syed Qamar Haider Zaidi, a spokesman for local Shia Muslim groups, condemned the Pakistani government for not providing protection to the community and announced three days of mourning and protest over the attack.
Hazara Town, one of two Hazara enclaves in Quetta, is considered to be less economically affluent than Alamdar Road, "poor families suffered", Changezi told Al Jazeera.
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, the armed pro-Sunni sectarian group, claimed responsibility for Saturday's attack.
The group also carried the January 10 twin bombings that killed more than 90 and led to a 76-hour sit-in demanding protection from the targeted killings. It has been banned since 2001.
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