An explosion at a fuel tank has left more than 50 people dead in the Libyan city of Sirte, officials and local residents have said. National Transitional Council commander Leith Mohammed said that the blast happened late on Monday. "There was an enormous explosion and a huge fire," he was quoted as telling AFP, adding that there were "dozens of charred bodies" at the scene. The explosion happened as a crowd waited nearby to fill their cars. Images from the scene showed residents carrying human remains away on stretchers as plumes of black smoke continued to rise from the tank. The exact number of people who were killed and injured in the explosion was not yet clear. According to one NTC official and the Syria-based Al-Rai television station, more than 100 people died. An NTC spokesman said a cabinet minister would provide further details in a news conference later in the day, the Associated Press reports. One eyewitness quoted by AP said that at least 11 people were brought to the town's Ibn Sina Hospital with serious burns on Monday. Tirana Hassan, a researcher for the New York-based Human Rights Watch, said nurses said they had been injured in the fuel depot blast. Sirte, the devastated hometown of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, was the last bastion of resistance to NTC forces and the site of his capture last week.