Mishandling of unexploded ordnance causes blast in Syria, killing four: State media

A blast in the Syrian coastal city of Latakia killed at least four people on Saturday, state media reported, adding that it was triggered by a scrap dealer mishandling unexploded ordnance.

“Four civilians were killed and nine injured in an explosion in a hardware store inside a four-story building” in the city’s Al-Rimal neighborhood, state news agency SANA said, adding that four of the injured were children.

The news agency said the blast was detonated when the scrap dealer mishandled an unexploded munition in an attempt to recover the metal.

Britain-based war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also described the blast as an “accident” resulting from a resident’s attempt to dismantle unexploded ordnance.

A resident of the city, Ward Jammoul, 32, said that she heard a “loud blast”, adding that she “headed to the site and found a completely destroyed building.”

She said civil defense personnel and ambulances were present at the site, alongside “a large number of people who had gathered to look for those trapped under the rubble.”

An image carried by SANA showed a large plume of smoke rising over a populated neighborhood.

A report by non-governmental organization Humanity and Inclusion had warned last month of the dangers posed by unexploded munitions left over from the 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 had never detonated.