Pakistan death toll climbs to 81 as bomb blast rips through Quetta

A Pakistani police official says the death toll from a horrific bombing overnight in southwestern Pakistan has climbed to 81.

Police official Fayyaz Saumbal said Sunday that many of the people who were critically wounded died throughout the night due to their injuries.

He says 164 people were hurt in the explosion that ripped through a crowded vegetable market Saturday in the city of Quetta.

The area is predominantly populated by Shiite Muslims, and most of the dead were from the minority sect.

A spokesman for Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a Sunni group, claimed responsibility for the bomb in Quetta, which caused casualties in the town's main bazaar, a school and a computer center.

Burned school bags and books were strewn around.

"The explosion was caused by an improvised explosive device fitted to a motorcycle," said Wazir Khan Nasir, deputy inspector general of police in Quetta.

"This is a continuation of terrorism against Shi'ites."

"I saw many bodies of women and children," said an eyewitness at a hospital. "At least a dozen people were burned to death by the blast."

Most Western intelligence agencies have regarded the Pakistani Taliban and al Qaeda as the gravest threat to nuclear-armed Pakistan, a strategic U.S. ally.

But Pakistani law enforcement officials say Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has become a formidable force.