Eleven people were killed Thursday in a minibus explosion in southern Russia, local news agencies reported.

The death toll from the blast, which occurred near a marketplace in Vladikavkaz, the capital of North Ossetia, has risen to 11, RIA Novosti reported, citing a law-enforcement source.

People gather at the site of a blast that ripped through a minibus in Vladikavkaz.[Xinhua/AFP]

"Seven people died immediately, some died on the way to hospital, and some passed away in hospital," the source said.

The explosive device is believed to have been detonated by a female suicide bomber. A criminal case has been opened over the blast for murder and terrorism.

In a separate report of Interfax, a government official said 10 people were killed and 39 others injured in the blast.

"The bodies of ten victims, six women and four men, are in the forensic laboratory in Vladikavkaz," Taimuraz Revazov, the republic's Deputy Health Minister, was quoted by Interfax as saying.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has ordered the Federal Security Service and the Investigation Committee of the Prosecutor General's Office to conduct a thorough probe into the incident, the Kremlin press service said.

The explosion was the deadliest in years in the North Caucasus region, which borders turbulent Chechnya and Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia.