"Helicopters committed a massacre, dropping a barrel bomb on a mini-bus station in the Fardous district of Aleppo, killing 20 civilians, among them children, and injuring 30 more," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights group said.
The Britain-based monitor said the toll was expected to rise because of the number of serious injuries among the wounded.
The group said most of bodies of those killed "were charred".
Video footage distributed by activists and posted on YouTube showed rubble and twisted scraps of metal strewn across the cratered pavement where the station was, underneath a bridge.
At least one car had been flipped on its side.
A second video showed several men hoisting a male victim missing a large section of the back of his torso onto an orange stretcher and into an ambulance.
It was unclear whether he was still alive.
Once Syria's economic powerhouse, Aleppo was been divided between government control in the city's west and rebel control in the east since shortly after fighting there began in mid-2012.
For months, the regime has waged an unrelenting aerial campaign against the opposition-held part of the city, making particular use of crude so-called barrel bombs.
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