40 killed, 50 injured as blast hits Pakistani mosque

40 people were killed and over 50 others injured after a blast hit a Shiite mosque in Pakistan’s southern district of Shikarpur on Friday afternoon.

Shaukat Ali, medical officer of district civil hospital, Islamabad, said that 20 among the dead and over 40 injured were moved to the medical facility after the attack.

District superintendent police of Shikarpur, said the bomb attack took place at a time when Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif was presiding over a meeting on the law and order situation in Karachi, capital of Sindh province.

He said that the blast which happened at about 1:50 pm local time, ripped through the mosque.

A number of people were trapped after the roof of the mosque collapsed due to the force of the explosion.

Witness Zahid Zoon told AFP news agency that hundreds of people rushed to the scene after the blast to try to dig out survivors from the rubble.

“It is chaos,” he said.

Senior police official Abdul Qudoos Kalwar said that four children were among the dead, according to the Associated Press news agency

Several of the most severely wounded patients were taken to hospitals in the cities of Larkana and Sukkur.

Shaukat Ali Memon, from the hospital in Shikarpur which received the first of those wounded, made an appeal on state television for blood donations.

Sharif has condemned the incident and ordered an immediate inquiry.

The Jundallah militant group has claimed responsibility for the attack. The group has been linked to Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and announced allegiance to Islamic State (IS) last year.