[Updated at 2:05 p.m. ET] The death toll has climbed to 19, officials say.

[Updated at 6:57 a.m. ET] The death toll in Tuesday's hot air balloon explosion in Egypt - the world's deadliest hot air balloon accident in at least 20 years - has risen to 18, according to the state-run MENA news agency.

Twenty-one people, many of them tourists, were in the balloon when it dropped about 300 meters (almost 1,000 feet) in the city of Luxor, the Egyptian interior ministry said.

[Posted at 1:57 a.m. ET] Fourteen tourists on a hot air balloon ride in southern Egypt were killed Tuesday when the balloon exploded and plummeted to the ground, authorities said.

It was the deadliest hot air balloon accident in the world in at least 20 years.