(Screenshot of GEO NEWS footage showing a marketplace in Quetta, Pakistan, targeted by a bomb attack on February 16, 2013  -- Video via AP)

The death toll from a bomb attack on a crowded market in the Pakistani city of Quetta on Saturday climbed to at least 60, police officials said, according to the AFP, and more than 200 were wounded.

"At least 47 people have been killed and at least 200 more wounded, and the death toll may rise," Wazir Khan Nasir, a senior police officer in Quetta, told the AFP.

"It was a remote-controlled bomb," Nasir said, describing the blast as a sectarian attack. "The Shia community was the target."

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Residents rushed the victims to three different hospitals, the Associated Press reported.

Another officer, Samiullah Khan, said police were investigating whether the bomb was planted in a rickshaw parked in the crowded vegetable market. He said the bomb was detonated while dozens of women and children were shopping for their evening meal, according to the AP.

President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf strongly condemned the bombing and vowed to go after militants.

Quetta is the capital of Balochistan province, which borders Iran and Afghanistan and has experienced a separatist rebellion as well as sectarian violence. Sectarian violence claimed more than 400 lives in Pakistan last year.

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