SANAA, May 19 (Islamonline & News Agencies) - Fifteen people were killed and 16 others injured in an explosion Saturday at an arms market in the Yemeni province of Al-Bayda, a Yemeni security official told news agencies.
"The explosion went off in warehouse where dynamite was stored and left 15 people dead and sixteen injured," the official SABA news agency said, quoting a Yemeni security official.
The officer added the blast occurred at 2:30 pm (11H30 GMT) in the warehouse belonging to a local business man, Omar Salem al-Sabri. The building contained dynamite which he sold for civilian use, like road construction and digging pits, he
added.
"The search will continue by the warehouse to see if there are anymore dead or wounded," he said, adding there will be an investigation into the blast. Earlier, an hospital official told AFP the death toll had reached 32 and the number of injured about 50, indicating the blast appeared to be an accident caused by "badly-stored" gunpowder.
Police officials, without specifying if it was an accident or an attack, first said the blast took place at around midday (0900 GMT) in a room filled with gunpowder in the old market of Radaa, a town in Al-Bayda, southeast of Sanaa.
The interior ministry estimates as many as 60 million firearms are held in private hands in Yemen, an average of more than three for every man, woman and child in this country of 17.5 million people.
A disarmament campaign in Yemen has been launched every year since 1995, but all have failed. Yemen's tribes are well armed and maintain a fierce independence in the rural areas where they are strongest.
Yemen's tribal society has built a reputation of chaos as heavy arms were widely available for different sectors of Yemenis. Many outlawed groups in the region have also resorted to the country, which borders the Red Sea for refugee and a shelter away from the watching gaze of security forces at their own countries.
People wear traditional dress and the custom of eating the narcotic plant Qat in the afternoons is still widely observed. The country has attracted the curiosity of a growing number of tourists. Several foreigners have been kidnapped by groups making various demands on the authorities.
