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THE death toll from a suicide blast at a luxury hotel in Pakistan's northwest Peshawar city has risen to 15, while 57 people were injured, a police official says.

Early reports suggest at least two men shot their way through a security barrier and rammed a pick-up truck packed with explosives into the five-star Pearl Continental hotel late Tuesday, causing massive devastation.

"Three more dead bodies including the body of a police official were recovered from the debris this morning (Wednesday)," Abdul Ghafoor Afridi, a senor police official in Peshawar, told AFP.

"The number of casualties could rise as we fear that some people are still trapped under the debris. One portion of the hotel was totally destroyed," he added.

"Three people including a manger of the hotel are missing and we fear they are under the debris."

Two foreign United Nations workers - Serbian Aleksandar Vorkapic with the refugee agency and Filipina Perseveranda So with the children's agency - were killed, the UN said, while many foreigners were among the injured.
Australia's Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said the high commission was checking to see if Australians had been hurt, but it was unlikely "on the basis of information we have".

"It's a terrible attack. We obviously condemn it," he said.

The massive bomb was hidden in a delivery truck, police and officials said, and was driven up to the five-star Pearl Continental hotel in the high-security Khyber Road area of Peshawar and detonated outside, causing massive devastation.

Revenge

It is the seventh deadly bombing to hit the troubled city in a month, as fears grow that Taliban militants are exacting revenge for a punishing six-week military offensive against them in three northwest districts.

City police chief Sefwat Ghayur confirmed it was a suicide blast.

"Occupants of a double-cabin pick-up truck forced their way in, firing at the security guards. The attackers struck their vehicle into the hotel building, and it exploded on impact," he said.

Hospital officials said foreign nationals were among the wounded.

"We have received 46 injured people including five foreigners," doctor Mohammad Rehan said at the main government hospital in Peshawar.

Senior police official Abdul Ghafoor Afridi said: "It was a bomb brought in a vehicle in the garb of hotel supplies."

Witnesses and a security official said they heard gunfire before the blast.

An AFP reporter at the scene said a deep crater was visible outside the four-story hotel, with smoke billowing around the damaged building and rescue workers rushing the wounded to safety.

"More than 500kg of explosive material was used in the blast," senior police official Shafqat Malik said.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon has strongly condemned the "terrorist" suicide attack in the "strongest possible terms," said a statement released by the UN.

"Once again, a dedicated staff member of the United Nations is among the victims of a heinous terrorist attack which no cause can justify," he said.

Dr Ban was referring to Aleksandar Vorkapic, an employee of the UNHCR refugee agency who was part of an emergency team recently deployed to Pakistan.