PESHAWAR/ARAWAN, PAKISTAN – Pakistani police say a suspected car bomb has killed at least 33 people near a police station in Peshawar, site of a deadly church bombing a week ago.
Police Officer Zahid Khan said Sunday’s explosion appeared to have been caused by a bomb in a parked car and detonated by remote control.
At least 33 people died in the blast, said Jamil Shah, a spokesman for Lady Reading Hospital, and over 70 were wounded.
Attacks in the city, which is the provincial capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, have claimed over 130 lives since last Sunday when two suicide bombers blew themselves up in a crowd of worshipers at a church, killing 85 people.
Then, on Friday, 19 people died when a bomb planted on a bus carrying government employees exploded in the suburbs of Peshawar.
Meanwhile, the death toll from Saturday’s powerful 6.8-magnitude earthquake in southwest Pakistan was put at 22, local officials said.
They fear the toll from the quake in Awaran, in Baluchistan province, could rise further.
“This new earthquake destroyed all that remains of the first quake, two villages destroyed completely,” said Abdul Malik, provincial chief minister of Baluchistan.
Officials said villagers were digging through newly created debris and that dozens of wounded people have been taken to a makeshift hospital in Mashkey area, Awaran.