Summary The bombings struck Friday in the town of Parachinar.
PARACHINAR (Web Desk) - The death toll from a pair of overnight bombings at a busy market in northern Pakistan rose to 57 on Saturday with 7 more people dying at a hospital, officials said.
The bombings struck Friday in the town of Parachinar, which sits in the Kurram tribal area that borders Afghanistan to the west. The market was full of people hurrying to buy items for their evening meal that breaks the day-time fast during the holy month of Ramadan.
At least 49 people had died and 187 were wounded in the attacks, Dunya News correspondent reported.
Dead bodies quickly overwhelmed Parachinar s main hospital, as large numbers of people sought medical attention after the blasts, said Hussain, who works at the hospital. He said 25 people were listed in a critical condition.
"We have no place to keep the wounded," another doctor, Zahid Hussain, said late Friday. "Many of them are lying on the hospital floor and on the lawn."
The apparently coordinated bombs hit the main bazaar as people were doing their evening shopping before the iftar meal, police spokesman Fazal Naeem Khan said.
One bomb was believed to have been planted on a motorcycle, Khan said.
The second bomb detonated about four minutes after the first, about 400 yards (365 meters) away from the initial blast, said government official Javed Ali.
One man, Said Hussain, who was in the area where the second blast struck, reported seeing a teenage boy shout "God is great!" just moments before the explosion.
"Ten people died on the spot and many were wounded," he said. "We rushed many of the wounded to the hospital in private cars."
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.
The Kurram tribal region, like much of northwest Pakistan, has been roiled by violence for years.
Violence like Friday s explosions poses a stark challenge to the new government led by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Critics say Sharif s government has struggled to articulate a plan for stopping the bombings and shootings that occur regularly in the mountainous tribal areas of northwestern Pakistan.
