4 Explosions Kill 63, Wound 300 in Pakistan

Two car bombs and two other explosions killed at least 63 people and wounded more than 300 Tuesday evening, officials reported. The blasts in a small area of downtown Karachi were almost simultaneous.

Witnesses and officials said the powerful car bombs blew passers-by to bits, destroyed about 20 vehicles and set off fires in Pakistan’s largest city.

“The situation is very bad,” said Dr. Abdul Karim, head physician at the Jinnah Post-Graduate Hospital. “We have declared a state of emergency in the hospitals, and we don’t know what the death toll will be.”

Local hospitals said they received a total of 63 bodies and 300 injured people, many in critical condition. They said numerous fragments of bodies were not included in the death toll.

No group claimed responsibility, but the city government issued a statement saying, “The explosions appeared to be the work of saboteurs of foreign origin.” It did not elaborate. However, authorities in Pakistan routinely blame bombings on agents of neighboring Afghanistan, which denies the charges. Pakistan aids and shelters Muslim guerrillas fighting the Communist government in Kabul.

Pakistan’s official media reported two car bombs. Police and other witnesses said that there also were two smaller explosions and that all four were within 200 yards of each other.

Terrorist bombings have killed dozens of people in Pakistani cities this year, but these were the first in Karachi, a city of 7 million with a history of ethnic and political unrest.

Thousands of people gathered outside hospitals, many of them relatives of the victims. Appeals for blood donors were broadcast through loudspeakers.

Police and soldiers cordoned off the area in the city’s fashionable Saddar district.

The car bombs exploded shortly after 6:30 p.m. in front of two buildings with ground-floor shops and three floors of apartments, police reported. They said a third bomb went off at a bus stop and the fourth on a nearby footpath.