A suicide bomber killed 38 people and wounded scores others, including a senior officer, at the funeral of a Pakistani policeman in the western city of Quetta on Thursday, local media quote police sources as saying.

“At least 38 people have been killed and more than 50 injured,” senior police official Mohammad Tariq told Pakistan's DawnNews. “Most of the dead and injured are policemen.” 

The AP reports 60 people sustained injuries. The wounded were transported to the Civil Hospital and the Combined Military Hospital. Several of them were said to be in critical condition. 

Eyewitnesses said fear and chaos broke out among the attendees of the funeral following the blast in the capital of Baluchistan province. 

At least 15 of the dead were Pakistani police officers, police officer Abdul Saboor told Reuters at the scene.

One of the dead included the head of police operations in Baluchistan, Fayaz Sumbal. Sumbal spotted the suicide bomber before he detonated his explosives and reportedly asked police officers to quickly search him. As officers began to question the bomber, he blew himself up. 

The bomb, which appeared to be a suicide blast, contained between eight to 10kg of explosive material, local media said. It went off as senior officers prepared to offer prayers for their fallen colleague, who had been gunned down earlier in the day.

Quetta is home to many militants, including the Taliban and sectarian groups, but no one has claimed responsibility for the attack.  

The attack in Pakistan comes just hours after a bomb planted in a graveyard in Afghanistan killed at least 14 women and children, many of them holding a vigil at the grave of a family member during the Muslim Eid al-Fitr holiday that marks the end of Ramadan.

A Pakistani man comforts a mourner at the site of a suicide bomb attack in Quetta on August 8, 2013. (AFP Photo / Banaras Khan)

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