AMMAN,(Reuters) – Syrian warplanes bombed a residential district of Aleppo on Sunday, killing and wounding dozens of people, a day after rebels overran army barracks in the neighbourhood, opposition activists in Syria’s largest city said.

They said the air raid destroyed a residential building in the Hananu neighbourhood, one of several in eastern Aleppo under insurgent control. The death toll was not immediately clear but bodies and wounded people were being dug out from the rubble.

Video footage from the area, taken by activists in the almost 18-month-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, showed scores of people searching and digging in the rubble of a flattened building.

The aerial bombardment has burst a main water pipeline, causing serious shortages of water in Aleppo, activists added.

The eastern sector of Aleppo, Syria’s commercial and industrial capital, has drawn air strikes since rebels attacked the Hananu barracks and freed scores of army deserters, according to opposition campaigners reached by telephone.