The blast unleashed pandemonium in one of the biggest boulevards in the Pakistani financial capital, where angry mourners threw stones and opened fire into the air, sparking appeals from the authorities for calm.
My sister, her husband and children are dead, one mourner, weeping profusely and beating his chest as he fled the bomb site, told AFP.
Pakistan had deployed tens of thousands of police and paramilitary forces, fearing sectarian clashes or militant bombings would target the Shiite faithful who whip themselves to mourn the seventh-century killing of Imam Hussein.
It was a suicide attack. He was walking with the procession and he blew himself up, Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik told private television, appealing on the Shiite community to suspend their commemorations.
This pattern shows that this was a joint venture between Tehreek-e-Taliban and Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, Malik told Dunya television, referring to two of Pakistan's most potent Islamist militant networks.
Ambulances raced through the streets, ferrying the casualties to hospitals, where state television said medics declared a state of emergency.
At least 20 people were martyred and more than 60 wounded, provincial health minister Saghir Ahmed told AFP.
We have declared emergency at all hospitals in Karachi and doctors are making every effort to save the injured. The situation is very grim, he said.
It was the second bomb attack to mar Ashura in Pakistan after a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a main Shiite mosque in Pakistani-administered Kashmir, killing seven people late Sunday.
Fire broke out after the blast in Karachi, fanning thick smoke into the sky, and people were running in all directions, an AFP reporter said.
Two further explosions were heard, which could have been gas tanks exploding in burning vehicles, and mourners torched a bus, which had blocked off a road for the procession, witnesses said. click here for more
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