Blast from old munition kills 16 in Syria

Scrap dealer mishandled unexploded bomb while trying to recover metal, officials say

Syrian civil defence members and first responders inspect the site of an explosion in Syria's western coastal city of Latakia on March 15, 2025. AFP

At least 16 people were killed in Syria on Sunday after a scrap dealer mishandled an old bomb, causing a massive explosion, officials said.

A four-storey building was demolished in the blast that took place in the city of Latakia on Saturday. Rescue officials pulled bodies from under the rubble throughout the night including five children as they searched for survivors.

Syria's civil defence team said 16 people had been killed “as a result of an explosion in a hardware store” in the apartment block.

“Search and rescue operations continue to recover those trapped,” it added, in a post on Telegram, reporting that at least 18 people had been injured. It said the detonation occurred when the scrap dealer mishandled an unexploded munition in an attempt to recover the metal.

Images from Syria's Sana news agency showed a plume of smoke rising from Latakia's crowded southern neighbourhood of Al Rimal, and a pile of rubble where the building had once stood.

The news agency reported that a scrap dealer had handled unexploded munition in an attempt to recover the metal.

Britain-based war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also called the explosion an “accident”.

Ma Ward Jammoul, 32, from Latakia, told AFP she heard a “loud blast”, adding that the building had been “completely destroyed”.

She said rescue workers and crowds of other people had gathered to “look for those trapped under the rubble”.

The blast comes as Syrians commemorated 14 years since the protests that led to years of bloodshed and devastation.

The anniversary is the first since the former president Bashar Al Assad fled the country in December as rebels approached Damascus, where people waving the new Syrian flag gathered in Umayyad Square, which was once reserved for supporters of the Assad regime.

A poster reading “15/3/2025, same date but we are now victorious” was carried by a man at Umayyad Square as helicopter gunships dropped flowers on those gathered.

Sana reported large crowds gathered in Idlib, a former rebel stronghold.