Kabul [Afghanistan], Jan 27 (NT): An explosion occurred on Saturday afternoon in Kabul City.

 As per reports At least 40 people were killed and more than 140 wounded when a massive explosion rocked a busy Kabul street on Saturday, Afghan officials said.

Officials feared the death toll would get higher. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.

“It’s a massacre,” said Dejan Panic, the coordinator for the Emergency aid organization’s trauma hospitals in Afghanistan. At least 50 people were brought to Emergency’s Kabul hospital.

Officials say a suicide car bomb blast in Afghanistan’s capital Saturday has wounded more than 110 people.

A crowd outside the government building that housed the counterterrorism directorate was attacked, according to local journalists.

Witnesses said a huge, thick plume of smoke rose into the sky after the explosion.

The attack takes place a week after five heavily armed Taliban suicide bombers stormed Kabul’s Intercontinental Hotel in a highly secured part of the city, killing at least 22 people. Four Americans were among the 14 foreigners killed in the attack.

The blast in Kabul came just hours after a suicide bomber detonated his explosives-filled car outside a military base in the southern province of Helmand.

The explosion in the Nad Ali district wounded at least six Afghan forces, officials said.

Emergency vehicles were "heard" rushing to the spot, as per media reports.