Afghan bomb blast kills 10 girls The body of a girl killed when a landmine exploded is loaded into a vehicle in Jalalabad. Photograph: Noorullah Shirzada/AFP/Getty Images Ten girls were killed when a bomb or landmine exploded as they were gathering firewood outside their village in eastern Afghanistan, an official said. Police said they believed the device was an unexploded mine that had been laid years ago and was triggered as the girls walked through the open field on Monday morning. At least one other old mine was found nearby, provincial police spokesman Hazrat Hussian Mashreqiwal said. He said the blast was not next to a road or any obvious target. The girls who died were aged from nine to 13 and came from different families in Dawlatzai village, said Mohammad Seddiq, the government administrator for Nangarhar province's Chaperhar district. Two more girls were seriously wounded and were in critical condition at a hospital, Seddiq told the Associated Press by phone from the site of the blast. Afghanistan remains one of the most heavily landmined countries in the world despite years of clearance. Many mines in rural areas are left over from the 1990s and are discovered only when triggered accidentally.