CHARSADDA, July 9 Thirty-four bodies of victims of the Ekkaghund suicide bomb blast were identified in the Shabqadar Civil Hospital and handed over to their relatives amid moving scenes here on Friday.

Security was beefed up in the Charsadda district adjacent to the Mohmand Agency after the blast and police barricaded the main routes. Police and Frontier Constabulary personnel were deployed in areas close to Ekkaghund.

Officials said 34 bodies, many of them badly mutilated, had been brought to the civil hospital for identification. Relatives who rushed to the hospital after the incident identified the bodies and later took them to their areas. The dead also included several children.

Emergency was declared in major health facilities of the provincial capital. A large number of the wounded people were also brought to the Civil Hospital in Shabqadar but due to lack of facilities and medical staff there they were later shifted to Peshawar.

Only one doctor was available in the Shabqadar hospital when the injured people were brought there. Other doctors arrived after two hours, but they could not provide treatment to the wounded people due to non-availability of medicines and surgical equipment.

Even first aid kit, including cotton, medicines and syringes, was not available in the hospital. MPA from Shabqadar Mohammad Ali Khan expressed concern over the lack of facilities in the civil hospital. The rural health centre in Ekkaghund was also without staff. Due to this situation, ambulances were called in from Peshawar to shift the injured p-eople to hospitals in the provincial capital.—Correspondent