A suicide attacker on a motorbike and a suspected car bomb unleashed carnage in a busy Pakistani market yesterday, killing 65 people and burying victims under pulverised shops.
The attacks devastated Yakaghund town in the district of Mohmand, one of seven that make up Pakistan's northwest tribal belt which Washington calls a global headquarters of Al-Qaeda and the most dangerous place on Earth.
It was the deadliest attack in nuclear-armed Pakistan since gunmen wearing suicide vests stormed prayer halls belonging to the minority Ahmadi community in the city of Lahore in May, killing at least 82 people.
A Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked bombing spree across Pakistan has killed more than 3,500 people in three years since government troops besieged a radical mosque in the capital Islamabad in July 2007.
Witnesses said a huge explosion damaged an administration office, shops, a jail and other buildings in the small town not far from the border with Afghanistan, where 140,000 US-led foreign troops are fighting the Taliban.
Wounded Raj Wali, 23, a labourer who was working on a nearby road at the time of the blast, said he suddenly felt a massive blow to his back.
"I turned round and saw the area engulfed in smoke. People were crying. I also saw body parts scattered near the blast site," he said.
Bodies were laid out on rope-slung cots, covered in white sheets as relatives arrived to identify the dead. A mother, two sisters and son were seen crying wretchedly over the body of one man.
Rescue workers were sifting through the debris of partially collapsed buildings and officials feared the death toll could rise further.
"The death toll is now 65 with 112 people wounded," local administration official Rasool Khan said.
Mr Khan said women and children were among the dead. Dozens of shops collapsed, trapping victims under the rubble.
Buildings in the downtrodden market were made mostly of mud and clay. The force of the explosives collapsed flimsy wooden roofs on more than two dozen shops, twisted shutters and snapped off doors, an AFP reporter said.
Slippers and empty bottles of soft drinks littered the market along with bloodied chunks of flesh.