July 13 (Bloomberg) -- Eleven people, seven of them children, were killed and around 20 homes destroyed in an explosion at a house in Pakistan’s Punjab province used for religious education, officials and television channels said.

Explosives stored in the village home near Mian Channu, close to the city of Multan, caused the blast, Kamran Khan, district police chief, said in a telephone interview. “It’s premature to say how many have been injured or killed as it will take time to remove the debris,” he added.

Two victims died in hospital, the GEO television channel said on its Web site, taking the death toll to 11, with dozens injured. People were still trapped in the rubble of destroyed houses, the channel said.

An audio cassette, pamphlets of a previously unknown militant group, two suicide jackets, and two rocket launchers were recovered from the debris of the house, the Agence France- Presse news agency quoted Khan as saying.

Among the dead were three women, a 15-year-old boy and six children aged between six and 12, AFP reported, citing Naeem Sadiq, a doctor at the local hospital. The agency put the death toll at 10 with 70 others wounded.

Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik told GEO explosives had been stored in a house owned by Master Riaz, and the blast was not the result of a suicide attack.

Pakistan has launched attacks against Taliban militants in its restive northwest and the military said July 8 it has almost completed a 10-week offensive against Taliban militants in the Swat Valley. The army now controls 90 percent of Swat, said spokesman Major General Athar Abbas. Troops escorted to their homes the first of the 2.5 million refugees who had fled their houses to avoid the fighting in the region.

The Taliban have said they will attack Pakistani cities with suicide bombers in retaliation for the military operation in Swat and the nearby tribal region.

To contact the reporter on this story: Khalid Qayum in Islamabad at kqayum@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: July 13, 2009 09:01 EDT