Blast from suspected old bomb in Syria kills 16

A massive explosion believed to have been triggered by a scrap dealer handling an old bomb killed at least 16 people in Syria, civil defence officials said on Sunday.

The blast on Saturday in the Mediterranean city of Latakia demolished a four-storey building, ripping down slabs of concrete and crushing residents underneath chunks of their flattened homes.

Rescue officials pulled out the bodies through the night — including five children — as they searched for survivors.

Syria’s civil defence team said 16 people had been killed “as a result of an explosion in a hardware store” in the apartment block.

“Search and rescue operations continue to recover those trapped,” it added, in a post on Telegram, reporting that at least 18 people had been injured.

Images from Syria’s SANA news agency showed a plume of smoke rising from Latakia’s crowded southern neighbourhood of Al Rimal, and a pile of rubble where the building had once stood.

The news agency reported that a scrap dealer had handled an unexploded munition in an attempt to recover the metal.

Britain-based war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also called the explosion an “accident.”

Ward Jammoul, 32, from Latakia, told reporters she heard a “loud blast,” adding that the building had been “completely destroyed.”

She said rescue workers and crowds of other people had gathered to “look for those trapped under the rubble.”

Aid agency Humanity and Inclusion warned last month of the dangers posed by unexploded munitions left over from Syria’s civil war that erupted in 2011.

It said experts estimated that between 100,000 and 300,000 of the roughly one million munitions used during the war never detonated.

The explosion on Saturday came on the same day as Syrians gathered to commemorate the 14th anniversary of their uprising for the first time since president Bashar Al Assad was toppled.

The Syrian conflict began with peaceful demonstrations against Assad’s government on March 15, 2011, in which thousands took part.

It later spiralled into civil war after he crushed the protests.

This year’s commemoration comes after Assad was toppled on Dec.8 by rebels.