At least 88 people were killed and 37 others wounded yesterday when a suicide car bomber blew himself up as people gathered to watch a volleyball tournament in northwest Pakistan, police said.
The suicide car bomber targeted a crowd gathered for the volleyball game in the deadliest strike in more than two months.
The latest bombing marked a bloody start to 2010 for Pakistan, which has seen a surge in attacks blamed on Taliban in recent months as Islamist fighters avenge military operations aimed at crushing their northwest strongholds.
Britain immediately condemned the attack as "horrific" and vowed to work with Islamabad to tackle the threat posed by violent extremism.
A man detonated his vehicle, which was packed with explosives, as fans gathered at a field to watch two local teams face off at a volleyball tournament in the village of Shah Hasan Khan, in Bannu district, which borders the Taliban stronghold South Waziristan.
"The villagers were watching the match between the two village teams when the bomber rashly drove his double-cabin pick-up vehicle into them and blew it up," district police chief Mohammad Ayub Khan said.
Mr Khan said that the tournament was organised by the local peace committee, who had supported a government operation to expel militants from the area.
It was the highest death toll from a suspected militant strike since a massive car bomb on October 28 killed 125 people in a crowded market in the northwestern provincial capital Peshawar.
Mr Khan said that more than 20 houses on both sides of the open ground where the match was being played had collapsed.
"Four paramilitary soldiers are also among the dead," he added.
Ramzan Bittani, a 33-year-old driver, said by telephone from a local hospital that he had left the match to take a call.
"As I was listening, I saw a huge blue and white spark followed by an ear-piercing blast. When I was able to figure out what had happened, I saw bodies and smoke all around. My hand was fractured," he said.
Anwer Khan, 18, a student, said that he had just stepped out of his house and he saw a black pick-up speeding up towards the spectators.
"A giant flame leaped towards the sky. There was bright light everywhere, just like a flash, and then a very huge blast shook everything. Two pellets hit my forehead and blood started flowing," Mr Khan said.
District police chief Khan said that women and children were pulled from the rubble of a nearby house that collapsed in the blast, and said that the remote area was struggling to cope with the scale of the attack.
He blamed the bomb on Islamist extremists who were the target of a military operation in Bannu district last year.
Security has plummeted over the last two-and-a-half years in Pakistan, where militant violence has killed more than 2,800 people since July 2007.
The northwest has suffered the brunt of the militant campaign, with suicide bombings increasingly targeting civilians.
The military is now locked in its most ambitious assault yet on Taliban strongholds in South Waziristan, sending 30,000 troops into battle in the district on the Afghan border on October 17.