**A building in southern Yemen has collapsed, killing at least 10 people, after an explosion ripped through it.**At least two children are reported to have died in the explosion, which happened just before dawn in the town of Taiz.
Some reports said a basement near the building was used to store fireworks, but others said the basement held an arms dealer’s cache of weapons.
Rebels in Yemen’s southern region are campaigning to secede from the country.
Yemen’s Defence Ministry said fireworks were stored in the basement, Agence France Presse reported.
The explosion caused the neighbouring six-storey building to collapse and damaged a third.
Earlier, medical sources told reporters that the basement was used by an arms dealer to store dynamite.
Secession movement
Yemen is the poorest country in the Arab world.
South Yemen and north Yemen were unified into the same country in 1990 after a civil war.
In the past two years a secessionist movement has grown in the south, demanding that the two countries separate again.
An al-Qaeda offshoot has also established a base in the country.
The government in Sanaa has recently signed a peace deal with a third rebel group in the north of the country, called the Houthis.
In the past week, the government has turned its attention to the southern secessionist movement and cracked down on demonstrations and arrested supporters.
At least two policemen were killed in clashes with a man whom the government claimed was a secessionist arms dealer in the town of Zinjibar on Monday.