MOGADISHU, Oct 2 (Reuters) - A fire tore through Somalia's biggest market on Tuesday, killing one person and sparking an outbreak of looting, witnesses and local media said.

Local radio reports said one woman was killed in the blaze that started at dusk in the capital.

Officials said the cause was not yet known.

Mogadishu's deputy mayor Abdullahi Firimbi appealed for help in putting out the fire in the city's Bakara market.

"I appeal to the looters to stop plundering the property of their brothers," he told local radio.

Residents said they could hear sporadic explosions in the sprawling market which houses stockpiles of ammunition and arms for sale.

Firimbi said the government was trying to send firefighters to the market -- the site of frequent insurgent attacks against government troops.

Joint Somali-Ethiopian troops are fighting suspected Islamist insurgents who pose the greatest threat to the interim government's efforts to restore central rule to Somalia, mired in anarchy since the 1991 ouster of a Mohammed Siad Barre.

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