Initial probe indicates blast was an accident
A blast in a suspected dynamite storage depot in the basement of a residential building in Yemen killed up to 19 people as they slept on Tuesday, and reduced their building to rubble, an official said.
"We think it was dynamite," a local official in the southern city of Taiz where the blast took place told Reuters.
The official said the pre-dawn explosion caused the collapse of a three-storey building with six residential apartments, and partly destroyed two adjacent homes. At least nine bodies were pulled from the rubble and rescue workers were looking for 10 more believed buried.
Some 15 people also were injured in the blast but survived.
The official said the dynamite was believed to have belonged to a Yemeni businessman and contractor who used explosives in road building works to flatten hills, but who did not live in the building.
An investigation into the cause of the blast was continuing, but based on initial findings there was no indication it was anything other than an accident, the official said.
Meanwhile, a separatist leader accused of al-Qaeda links, his wife and two children as well as two policemen were killed in a gunbattle in southern Yemen on Monday, officials and his supporters said.
"Ali Saleh al-Yafei, wanted for links with al-Qaeda, was killed as well as some of his followers" in an assault on his hideout, the defense ministry said in a brief statement.
Yemen rose to the forefront of Western security concerns after the Yemeni arm of al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for a failed attempt to bomb a U.S.-bound plane in December.