The toll in a massive bomb attack on Wednesday in the Kurdish-majority city of Qamishli in northeastern Syria has risen to 44, state media said.

The official SANA news agency said at least 140 people were also injured when a suicide bomber in a vehicle blew himself up in a western neighbourhood of the city.

The attack was initially described as a double bombing, but sources in the city and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights subsequently said the initial attack had caused a gas tank to detonate.

The area targeted houses several ministries of the local autonomous Kurdish administration. -AFP