At least 25 killed in Pakistan railway station blast

46 wounded in the blast occurred at the Quetta railway station

QUETTA: A bombing claimed by separatists killed 25 people including 14 soldiers at a railway station in the southwestern Balochistan province, police said Saturday.

"Fourteen army personnel are among the 25 confirmed dead," said Muhammad Baloch, a senior local police official, raising an earlier toll of 22 provided by the local government.

The blast hit as passengers waited on a platform at the main railway station in the provincial capital Quetta.

An AFP journalist saw pools of blood and ripped backpacks at the scene, where a large metal sheet protecting passengers from the elements had been blown off.

A spokesperson for a local hospital said 46 people wounded in the blast had been brought to the facility, along with multiple dead.

Despite frequent attacks in Balochistan the toll of Saturday's blast was particularly high for the southwestern province, which borders Afghanistan and Iran.

The train station explosion hit at around 8:45 am (0345 GMT) and was claimed by the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), one of the area's main separatist groups.

The attack "was carried out on a Pakistani army unit at Quetta railway station... after completing a course at the Infantry School," the BLA said in a statement.

The group frequently claims deadly attacks against security forces or Pakistanis from other provinces.

At Quetta station, police said they were working to determine the cause of the blast.

"When we reached here, initially it appeared that some explosive had perhaps been hidden or left in the luggage. But now we think it may be a suicide bomber," Muhammad Baloch, a senior local police official, told journalists.

Firefighters, rescuers and passengers were working through abandoned luggage on the platform, guarded by heavily armed members of the security forces.