Suicide bomb outside hospital in Afghanistan kills at least 20, injures 90

A powerful early morning suicide truck bomb devastated a hospital in southern Afghanistan on Thursday, killing at least 20 people and wounding more than 90 others, an official said.

The Taliban took responsibility for the attack, which destroyed part of the hospital in Qalat, the capital of southern Zabul province, and left a fleet of ambulances broken and battered.

Residents, many of whom had come to see their sick family members, used shawls and blankets to carry the wounded inside the destroyed building, while authorities scrambled to take the worst of the wounded to hospitals in nearby Kandahar.