The government in the Pakistani province of Sindh has declared a day of mourning after a suicide attack in its capital, Karachi, killed 33 people.
Government offices are closed and security is tight ahead of the funerals of the victims.
Dozens of people were also injured in the suicide bombing on a Shia Muslim march on Monday.
Pakistan's security forces have been on high alert as Shia Muslims marked the holy month of Muharram.
Ashura on Monday was the climax of the holy period, commemorating the death of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson.
The main political parties in Sindh have called for a business and transport strike in protest against the violence.
Most petrol stations are closed in Karachi, and there is no traffic on the roads.
Pandemonium
Firemen are still dousing fires that erupted after the attack and gutted a number of shops in the main commercial district in downtown Karachi where the attack took place.
"Our office and the whole building is completely burnt. Everything has been destroyed," Saleem Khan, owner of a car rental business, told Reuters news agency.
The attacker had been walking amidst a procession with tens of thousands of people, said the interior minister.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which comes amid an upsurge of violence by Taliban militants in Pakistan.
Karachi has a long history of sectarian violence between Shias and Sunnis.
Sunni extremist groups affiliated with Taliban and al-Qaeda are the obvious suspects behind Monday's attack, the BBC correspondent M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad says.
There have been numerous attacks on such processions across the country over the last few days.
On Sunday, eight people were killed when a suicide bomber targeted a Shia march in Pakistani-administered Kashmir.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik blamed Monday's blast on extremists who wanted to destabilise Pakistan.
Karachi police chief Waseem Ahmed said the severed head of the bomber had been found.
After the explosion, marchers turned their anger on ambulance workers, security forces and journalists.
The bombing unleashed further pandemonium as angry Shia mourners fired shots in the air.
Our correspondent says an incident like this was feared by the authorities.
Stringent security measures had been put in place across the country over the last month.
Hundreds of civilians have been killed in bomb attacks in recent months as Pakistan's army pursues an offensive against Taliban militants in South Waziristan and surrounding areas.
Pakistan also has a long history of violence between Sunni and Shia Muslims that is estimated to have killed several thousand people in the last three decades alone.
Some radicals in the Sunni majority regard Shias - who make up about 20% of the population - as heretics.
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