Car Bomb at Afghan Hospital Kills at Least 20
A sport utility vehicle packed with explosives blew up on Saturday outside a small hospital in a remote area of eastern Afghanistan, killing at least 20 people and injuring at least 23 more, government officials said.
¶ The powerful midmorning blast ripped through the Akbar Khail hospital, a 10-bed clinic in the Azara District of Logar Province, about 40 miles southeast of Kabul near the Pakistan border.
¶ The explosion leveled the one-story building and sent debris crashing down on patients, visitors and staff members inside, said Din Mohammad Darwish, a spokesman for the provincial governor’s office.
¶ Rescuers continued to pull the dead and injured out of the wreckage late into the afternoon, Mr. Darwish said.
¶ “The hospital is totally destroyed,” he said. “The numbers may go higher.”