At least 30 people were killed and more than 50 wounded in Yemen's capital Sanaa on Wednesday after a car bomb exploded outside a police college, police sources said.
The victims from the latest blast, which there was no immediate claim of responsibility for, included students at the college and people waiting in line to enroll with the police, as well as passers by.
The explosion was heard across the city and a large plume of smoke was visible near the college in a heavily congested part of the city near the central bank and the defense ministry.
"The situation is catastrophic. We arrived to find bodies piled on top of each other," a paramedic at the scene said as ambulances took casualties away.
"We found the top part of one person yelling, while his bottom half was completely severed."
According to police sources, another car had been passing as the bomb went off and was set on fire along with everyone inside.
The Interior Ministry said it was halting registration at the police college, which takes place every year, for a week.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), considered by the United States to be al-Qaeda's most dangerous branch, has taken credit for similar attacks on security forces in the past.
A suicide bomb attack on Houthi supporters in central Yemen last week killed 49 people. Four people including a reporter were killed Sunday in another blast targeting Houthis in southwestern Yemen.
AQAP is active in several Yemeni provinces, mainly in the south and southeast, where repeated government military campaigns drove the network's militants out of key cities they once controlled.
AQAP was born out of a 2009 merger of its franchises in al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden's native Saudi Arabia and his ancestral homeland in Yemen.
