It was the first major attack in Pakistan since devastating floods engulfed a fifth of the volatile country over the past month in its worst ever disaster.

The string of blasts ripped through the crowd of thousands at the moment of the breaking of fast in the ongoing holy month of Ramadan, and led to an outpouring of fury as mourners tried to torch a nearby police station. Police fired tear gas shells to force back the surging crowd.

"The mourning process had just ended when I heard three deafening explosions after brief intervals," Shahid Hussain, a mourner, said with tears rolling down his cheeks.

People cried and beat their heads and chests at the site of the attacks, chanting slogans against the police and provincial government over their failure to protect the mourners, an AFP correspondent on the scene said.

"Twenty-five people were killed and over 180 others wounded in the three suicide attacks," a senior local administration official, Sajjad Bhutta, told AFP.

Lahore, a city of eight million near Pakistan's border with India, has been increasingly subject to Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked attacks in a nationwide bombing campaign that has killed more than 3,300 people in three years.

AFP