By Aamir Latif

KARACHI

At least eight people were killed and many others injured as a powerful blast rocked a police residential complex in the northeastern city of Lahore, police and local media said. 

City police chief Aneen Wains told reporters that it was a suicide attack, "The suicide bomber wanted to enter the police residential compound but he blew himself up prematurely due to tight security."

"I saw human bodies tossed in the air and fall meters away as the blast was so large," Mashkoor Hussein, an eyewitness, told local Dunya TV. "I threw myself on the ground to save myself from pieces of stones, bricks and other objects flying in the air," he said.

The blast smashed the windows of several nearby buildings. At least six vehicles parked outside the compound were badly damaged as thick smoke wafted upwards from burning vehicles. 

Pieces of human flesh, broken glass, blood-soaked shoes, clothes and other belongings were strewn all around the area.

TV footage showed ambulances rushing to the scene and evacuating the injured to hospitals. 

The city's administration has imposed an emergency situation at all the city hospitals as doctors fear an increase in the death toll due to the critical condition of some of the injured. 

This is the second terrorist attack within a week in Pakistan. Terrorists attacked a Shiite Mosque in the northwestern city of Peshawar killing 23 worshipers last week.