There has also been heightened security in Pakistan as it prepares to host the leaders’ summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).
The blast was reportedly heard in various areas around the city, with footage from local media showing thick smoke and cars set alight.
Sindh Home Minister Ziaul Hasan Lanjar said that the explosion was likely to be have been caused by a suspected improvised explosive device (IED).
Pictures online show security officials and firefighters investigating the explosion site, where several vehicles have been charred by the blast.
A police surgeon, Dr Summaiya told Dawn news: “Ten injured persons, including one in critical condition, have been brought the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical College (JPMC).”
She added the injured included a police constable and a woman.
A statement posted on X from Sindh’s Interior Minister’s office said that a “tanker truck” had exploded on Airport Road and said the minister was in contact with the Malir Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) regarding the incident.
“We need to ascertain the facts,” the statement said.
Roads leading to Jinnah International Airport were sealed off following the attack, but the airport is functioning as usual today.
There have been multiple attacks on Chinese nationals in Pakistan in recent years. The BLA has claimed responsibility for several of them, including an attack in March on a Pakistani naval airbase near the Gwadar port, another main feature of the China-Pakistan economic corridor.
In April 2022, the group killed three Chinese tutors and a Pakistani driver in a suicide bombing near Karachi University’s Confucius Institute.
In November 2018, gunmen killed at least four people in an attack on the Chinese consulate in Karachi.
Thousands of Chinese workers are in Pakistan, many of them involved in creating an economic corridor between the two countries as part of Beijing’s multibillion dollar Belt and Road Initiative.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)