Blast heard in Pakistan's Lahore amid tensions with India

A blast was heard in Pakistan's Lahore city on Thursday, broadcaster Geo TV and a Reuters witness said, a day after Indian strikes on multiple targets in the country and fears of a larger military conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

There was no immediate word on the reason for the blast.

India claimed to have hit "terrorist infrastructure" in Pakistan in the early hours of Wednesday, two weeks after it accused Islamabad of involvement in an attack in Indian Kashmir in which 26 people, mostly Hindu tourists, were killed.

However, Pakistan says the missiles targeted mosques and killed civilians in a blatant "act of war".

Islamabad had denied the accusation and vowed to retaliate against the missile strikes, also saying it shot down five Indian aircraft. The Indian embassy in Beijing termed reports of fighter jets being shot down as "misinformation".

Meanwhile, Pakistan shot down 12 drones from India that violated its airspace, the military said on Thursday.

India sent Israeli Harop drones to multiple locations, including the two largest cities of Karachi and Lahore, and their debris is being collected, Pakistan military spokesperson Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said.

"Indian drones continue to be sent into Pakistan airspace...(India) will continue to pay dearly for this naked aggression," he said.

India's defence ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Pakistan says at least 31 of its civilians were killed and about 50 wounded in the strikes and in cross-border shelling across the frontier in Kashmir that followed, while India says 13 of its civilians died and 59 were wounded.

The Indian defence ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but an Indian defence official, who did not want to be named, said there were no Indian operations underway in Lahore.

The cross-border exchange of fire in Kashmir tapered off slightly overnight, Indian officials said.

Drills amid retaliation concerns

Blackout drills were conducted in India's border regions on Wednesday night, including in the northern border city of Amritsar, which houses the Golden Temple revered by Sikhs.

Local media reported panic buying in some cities in the Indian state of Punjab, which shares a border with Pakistan, as people hoarded essentials, fearing a Pakistani retaliation to the Indian strikes.

In Pakistan, most cities returned to normalcy, and children returned to school. But in the border province of Pakistani Punjab, hospitals remained on high alert and civil defence authorities conducted exercises to deal with emergencies.

Pakistan's aviation authority also "temporarily suspended" flight operations at airports in Lahore, the southern port city of Karachi, and the northeastern city of Sialkot until noon (0700 GMT). It did not give a reason for the suspension.

Although Pakistan's federal government has pledged to respond to India's strikes, Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif told The New York Times on Wednesday that Pakistan was ready to de-escalate.

With India saying it would "respond" if Pakistan "responds", global powers have urged a calming of tensions. US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he hoped the countries could "work it out" and added that he "will be there" if he can help.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio separately discussed efforts to cool tempers between India and Pakistan with his Saudi Arabian counterpart in a Wednesday call, the State Department said.

The relationship between India and Pakistan has been fraught with tension since they gained independence from colonial Britain in 1947, and the countries have fought three wars, two of them over Kashmir.

(Reuters)