Death toll rises to 50 in Pakistan

QUETTA, pakistan - The death toll from a bomb blast at a shrine in southwest pakistan Saturday has risen to 50 people with more than 100 wounded, officials said. Abdur Rasool, an official at the province's home ministry, said rescuers were transporting the wounded to hospitals and the dead to local morgues, but were struggling in the difficult mountainous terrain, some 350 kilometers south of the provincial capital, Quetta. The blast comes ahead of the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's pre-planned trip to the province tomorrow, where he will see off the first Chinese shipping consignment to Africa from Gwadar port. Baluchistan home minister Sarfaraz Bugti, citing a lack of cellular services in the affected area, said the situation will be much clearer in the morning. He said over 500 people were present in the courtyard of the shrine when the blast happened. Abdul Hakim Lasi, an official with the Edhi Foundations rescue service, said many of the injured were wounded in a panicked stampede after the blast. A doctor at an area hospital told a local television station that the number of wounded being brought in had overwhelmed the hospital's capacity. "We don't have sufficient space so several people were treated outside on the ground," the doctor said adding that, "Several wounded people have lost limbs."