At least 39 people, including 12 children, have been killed by an explosion in a rebel-held town in the northwestern province of Idlib, Syria.
“The explosion occurred in a weapons depot in a residential building in Sarmada,” Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.
“Three members of the jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) were also killed,” The Guardian reports, adding that most of those killed in the blast were family members of HTS fighers.
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Several people remained trapped in the collapsed building for hours, with local reports saying that 10 people had been pulled from the rubble alive, while dozens of people remain missing.
Volunteers for the White Helmets, an aid group that provides rescue and medical services to civilians in Syria, are on the scene and “working tirelessly, searching and rescuing, in unbelievable areas of destruction and death”, CNN reports.
The cause of the explosion remains unclear, however Syrian government troops, backed by Iran and Russia, have made “major advances in its offensive against a number of rebel and jihadist groups” in recent months, the BBC says.
Many of the rebels and jihadists have fled to Idlib for refuge, as it remains one of the few places left in Syria not under government control.
There have been a number of explosions and assassinations in the province, mainly targeting rebel officials and fighters, in recent months.