KARACHI, June 14: Ten people were killed and 51 others wounded when a car-bomb exploded outside the US consulate-general here on Friday. The dead included five women.

Witnesses said that a driving school car running slower than other vehicles blew up into pieces near the police kiosk set up next to the consulate building. The explosion was so severe that a vehicle, running next to the car, flew into the air and crashed into a watering-place across the road some 100 yards away.

Many vehicles plouged into each other and their windscreens and windowpanes were broken. Almost three dozen vehicles were destroyed.

The victims were taken to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre and the Civil Hospital. Those pronounced dead at the JPMC were Dr Aliya, her uncle Shafaat, Ikramullah, Constable Munawar Azam, Ilyas and his son Rizwan.

The dead identified at the Civil Hospital were Farkhanda Jabeen, 38, Nida Nazeer, 20, Nazish, 19, and Rehana Parveen, 38. All the bodies were mutilated.

The windowpanes of nearby buildings, including the consulate, Hotel Marriott, ABN-Amro Bank as well as Metropole Hotel, located about 500 yards away from the scene of blast, were broken.

The wounded included policemen, passers-by and those working in nearby buildings.

Farkhanda, Nida, Nazish and Rehana Parveen were travelling in the car of Khanum Motor Training School. They were returning from the Driving Licence Branch after getting their licences when their car blew up in front of the consulate.

One of the wounded, Soz Khan, a labourer working with a building contractor at Marriott, told Dawn at the JPMC that he was at work when the explosion took place and something hit his hand.

“I did not know what had happened and the glasses started to fall down. I ran for cover,” he said.

Samuel, running a flower shop on the premises of Marriott, said: “I was chatting with my cousin Ashar when the blast shook the locality and we were hit by some glass pieces.

The police kiosk was partially destroyed and a portion of the consulate’s boundary wall collapsed.

The police, rangers, and army arrived at the spot and cordoned off the area for investigation purpose.

Windscreens of many other vehicles parked on the premises of surrounding buildings were also broken. Windowpanes of the adjacent Hotel Marriott were smashed and shops located there were also badly damaged.

The blast left the steering-wheel of a passing vehicle (S-3002) twisted and the pole-mounted neon-sign boards collapsed. The elderly owner of the car (S-3002) was among the wounded.

Some of damaged vehicles were (CA-8343), (ABW-759), (AAX-678), (ADW-331), (S-3002), (KCZ-1715), (KCJ-1745), (AB-3735) and a Vespa scooter (KAJ-1852).

A senior police official said that the entire area would remain closed for public for some days.

As the personnel of various security agencies were busy examining the debris, electric wires short-circuited, causing wire snapping and creating panic among the security personnel.

Meanwhile, a KESC spokesman said that the explosion had caused snapping of the streetlight connection on the Abdullah Haroon Road, and damaged the door of the US consulate sub-station. The supply to the locality was instantly isolated from the main distribution network, he added.

On May 8 a suicide car bomb outside Hotel Sheraton had left 14 people, including 11 French navy personnel, dead.