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Bomb kills 10 at northwest Pakistan polling station


    PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - A bomb exploded at a polling station in northwest Pakistan on Sunday killing at least 10 people, including four children, during a by-election for a provincial assembly seat, police and government officials said.

    The attack was the latest in a string of blasts in northwest Pakistan where security forces are battling al Qaeda and Taliban militants.

    "The bodies of the children are beyond recognition," police official Khan Bacha told Reuters by telephone from Buner.

    He said around a dozen people were wounded.

    Government officials said the death toll may rise as the school building where the polling station was set up had collapsed.

    "There are still people under the rubble. Villagers are trying to retrieve the trapped people. We don't know how many people are dead and how many alive," Kashif Khan, a resident said from the scene.

    The incident took place near Buner town, which is in North West Frontier Province and near the Swat Valley where security forces have been fighting militants since last year.

    (Reporting by Zeeshan Haider; Editing by Robert Birsel and Valerie Lee)