At least 47 people have been killed and many others wounded in a bomb attack on a crowded market in the Pakistani city of Quetta, police say.

Senior local police officer Wazir Khan Nasir told the AFP news agency that at least 200 people had been injured and the death toll could rise.

The bomb was detonated by remote-control in a Shia-dominated area of Quetta, he said.

He called it a sectarian attack: "The Shia community was the target."

Quetta is the capital of Balochistan province, which borders Iran and Afghanistan and has been plagued by a separatist rebellion as well as sectarian violence.