At least 17 people have died and 108 were injured after an explosion at a warehouse used to store gunpowder this morning, in Myanmar's biggest city of Yangon.
Six of the dead are firefighters, AP reported, and many of the dead were hit by flying debris of broken walls and stone slabs.
Around 900 people have been left homeless and a Buddhist monastery was destroyed in the blast.
Officials have ruled out a bomb, but say the cause of the explosion remains unknown. Home Ministry officials claim the explosions were due to chemicals, including ammonia and potassium nitrate, store in one of the warehouses.
Taxi driver Ko Tin Than, 33, told Reuters: "It was just like a volcanic eruption like you see in the movies."
Than Soe, who was around a mile away from the site when the blast occurred, said: "It was such a loud noise that at first we thought it was something like an asteroid falling to earth."