A car bomb exploded in the Russian republic of North Ossetia on Thursday, killing at least 16 people -- including an 18-month-old baby -- and wounding up to 112 others, government and local health officials said.

The vehicle blew up near a market in the city of Vladikavkaz, the republic's leader, Taimuraz Mamsurov, told Interfax.

"Information that I possess indicates that the explosion in Vladikavkaz was organized by a suicide bomber, who drove a Volga 3102 car to near the entrance to the market," Mamsurov said.

Investigators said the explosive device contained the equivalent of 40 kilograms of TNT.

The Investigative Committee of the Russian Prosecutor's Office told CNN that 77 people were injured in the bombing.

However, local health authorities in North Ossetia told CNN that the number of injured is 112, 99 of whom were hospitalized.

At least nine of them, including one child, were said to be in critical condition.

The car bomb -- inside a vehicle parked at the entrance to the central market in downtown Vladikavkaz, with a suicide bomber sitting inside it -- detonated at 11:20 a.m. (3:20 a.m. ET), according to the Investigative Committee, which qualified the bombing as a "terrorist act."

The committee also said the bomb was stuffed with various pieces of metal to increase the human damage. A natural gas canister, stored in the car's trunk, also detonated, the committee said.

The Russian Emergency Situations Ministry is sending special medical planes to Vladikavkaz to airlift heavily injured patients to Moscow's leading trauma clinics.

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