US blames gas for Baghdad blasts

The district was rocked by a series of explosions

US officials have blamed the death of at least 57 Iraqis in Baghdad on Sunday on an accidental gas explosion.

But Iraqi officials insisted that the capital's Zafaraniya district had been hit by rockets and bombs.

Some 140 people were injured in a series of blasts that demolished a four-storey building, damaged several more and ripped through a crowd.

The US military said ordnance experts had concluded that a "very significant gas explosion" was responsible.

The gas blast occurred on the first floor of the building that was destroyed and the following blasts were secondary explosions, said Maj Gen William Caldwell, chief spokesman for the US-led military coalition in Iraq.

"There is no evidence substantiating that something else was involved," Gen Caldwell said.

Conflicting versions

But Iraqi officials said the US version of events was wrong.

"From the extent of the damage and some remains, it is clear that the explosions were caused by bombs and rockets," Interior Ministry spokesman Col Saddoun Abu al-Ula was quoted as saying by the Associated Press news agency.

Zafaraniya, in south-eastern Baghdad, is a religiously mixed but majority Shia area.

Iraqi officials said Sunni militants fired a Katyusha rocket into the four-storey building.

As bystanders tried pulling bodies and injured people from the rubble, another blast occurred nearby, causing more casualties.

The Iraqi authorities say a car bomb was responsible for that explosion.

Several other explosions were reported in the area.

The initial death toll was put at 47, but on Monday officials said that had risen to at least 57.

It is mixed areas like Zafaraniya that have often been worst affected by the sectarian violence between Sunni and Shia groups, which has been escalating over recent months.