KARACHI, July 19: Life in Hub was limping back to normality on Thursday evening after some shops along the main Hub Road, where a bombing earlier in the day had claimed at least 30 lives, had been reopened.

The shops on both sides of the road were badly damaged. And the shopkeepers were removing the debris and assessing the extent of losses.

The blast site had been cordoned off by the security officials by erecting tents around it. “Investigation teams from Quetta are arriving to examine the spot.

“We will spend the whole night in examining the scene of the attack,” Hub ASP Faizullah Korejo told Dawn.

“I have never witnessed such a massive blast. Several vehicles were tossed across the road island and onto the track on the other side due to the blast,” said Mohammad Akram, a bakery worker whose shop is a few yards from the blast site.

“The blast followed a fire. For at least 15 minutes the flames were leaping up,” he said.

They (the Chinese engineers) have survived the blast with minor injuries, the ASP added.

The blast took place at 8:35am was so massive that everything within the radius of several kilometers was rocked, said Abdul Ghafoor, a nearby resident.

“Immediately after the blast the FC personnel escorting the convoy at the tail-end opened fire, injuring at least eight people,” Ghafoor claimed.

The claim was supported by an Edhi ambulance driver who quoted several people at the spot saying that bewildered FC personnel resorted to firing wounding several innocent people.

“Shortly after the blast we rushed to the spot and called for more ambulances from Karachi, the injured were taken to the Hub Civil Hospital and Murshid Hospital in Karachi.

Serious patients were directly taken to the Karachi Civil Hospital”, said Ayaz Ali Mandro, an Edhi ambulance driver.

On Thursday evening, Mehrullah came to the Edhi centre in Hub asking for an ambulance for the Karachi Civil Hospital for shifting his injured brother for treatment.

“My brother Mohammad Haroon along with my father was heading for Bella, they were passing in their vehicle when the blast occurred, Haroon suffered shrapnel in his thigh while my father escaped with minor bruises caused by broken glass,” Mehrullah said.