At least 15 people were killed and 132 wounded when a building used by militants to store weapons and tonnes of explosives blew up in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Wednesday, senior security officials said. Iraqi officials said women and children were among the victims from the blast, which also tore through nearby homes. Heavy equipment had been brought in to dig for survivors. "There are still people trapped inside the blast site and under rubble," Major-General Mark Hertling, commander of U.S. forces in northern Iraq, told Reuters by telephone.| Explosive experts at the scene estimated 15 tonnes of ordnance had been hidden in the building. |
Witnesses said it was one of the biggest explosions ever heard in ethnically and religiously mixed Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad. They said a huge plume of smoke rose above the largest city in northern Iraq. The explosion destroyed the unoccupied three-storey building. Hertling said 12 civilians and three Iraqi soldiers had been killed and that U.S. military medics had been sent to Mosul to help treat the wounded.