6:50pm UK, Monday December 28, 2009

Philip Thomas, Sky News Online

At least 30 people have been killed in a suicide bomb blast targeting a Shi’ite procession in the Pakistani city of Karachi.

A further 63 have been wounded in the attack, according to provincial health minister Saghir Ahmed. Earlier reports suggested 25 people had died.

Many of the injured are said to be in a critical condition and officials have warned that the death toll is likely to rise.

It is the latest of a string of bombings across Pakistan which have killed hundreds of people in the past month.

Television pictures showed an explosion hitting the procession – held to mark the key holy festival of Ashura – on a main road in Karachi, Pakistan’s biggest city.

Police sources have told Sky News they believe that two attackers detonated their explosives.

A plume of smoke rises from the procession after the attack

Sky’s Asia correspondent Alex Crawford said: “Many thousands had gathered in Karachi for this religious festival and the two of them apparently wandered into the crowd and set themselves off.”

The latest attacks show an increase in “ferocity and diversity”, said Crawford.

“Across all parts of Pakistan now, there is nowhere considered safe or uninterrupted by a terrorist violence campaign.”

Police officer Raja Umer Khatab said after the bomb exploded, some people in the crowd began firing shots into the air in protest.

Furious worshippers attacked police and set fire to dozens of shops and vehicles, witnesses told Reuters.

A rescue worker calls for assistance at the site of the suicide bomb.

Karachi Mayor Mustafa Kamal called for calm, saying: “I want to appeal to the people, to my brothers, my elders to stay calm.

“I am hearing people are clashing with police and doctors. Please do not do that.

“That is what terrorists are aiming at. They want to see this city again on fire.”

Security has been tightened across Pakistan for Ashura, a month of mourning often marred by bombings and fighting between Pakistan’s Sunni Muslim majority and its Shi’ite minority.