According to a provincial spokesman, at least 62 people were killed and dozens were injured in a mosque in Afghanistan during Friday prayers.
Witnesses said the explosion destroyed the roof of the building in eastern Nangarhar province.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
The blast came the day after the UN said the number of civilian deaths in the war-torn country had reached unprecedented levels over the summer.
According to the UN, 1,174 civilians were killed between July and September, the deadliest quarter since UN records began a decade ago.
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Attaullah Khogyani, the provincial governor’s spokesman, told the BBC that the 62 people killed and 36 more injured in Friday’s attack were worshippers.
The mosque sits in the district of Haska Mina, about 50km (30 miles) from the provincial capital Jalalabad.
Eyewitnesses reported hearing a loud explosion, before the roof of the mosque caved in. According to Afghanistan’s Tolo News, a number of explosives are believed to have been used.
“It was a heartbreaking scene I witnessed with my eyes,” tribal elder Malik Mohammadi Gul Shinwari told the Reuters news agency.
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Local police officer Tezab Khan said he could hear the sound of the Mullah preaching but “suddenly his voice was silenced with a boom”.
“When I arrived on the scene, people were trying to bring out the bodies and injured who were stuck under the fallen roof,” he added.
Sohrab Qaderi, a member of the provincial council in Nangarhar, warned the number a casualties was likely to rise as people were “working to bring out the bodies from the rubble”.
It is not clear who carried out the attack. The Taliban have denied they were behind the bombing.
According to the United Nations, anti-government forces are responsible for the majority of civilian deaths since early 2019, due to an increase in violence during the summer.
This is a change from the first six months of the year, when the Afghan and US forces killed more civilians.
United Nations data, which was released on Thursday, also revealed that 41% of all those killed since January were women and children.
