The Syrian Center for Policy Research, a Beirut-based nongovernmental organization, has put the death toll from the six-year-old conflict at more than 470,000.
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In a statement, Ban warned that the use of bunker bust bombs and other advanced munitions against civilians may amount to war crimes. Images of blast sites show craters several metres wide and deep.
Intensified attacks on the Syrian city of Aleppo have left almost two million people without water, the United Nations says.
Syrian and Russian Federation deny claims that their forces had been involved.
“In retaliation, the Suleiman al Halabi pumping station, also located in the east, was switched off – cutting water to 1.5 million people in the western parts of the city”, said Hanaa Singer, UNICEF representative in Syria.
Even armed militants intending to surrender themselves to the Syrian army can get out of the region safely, according to Syrian officials.
“There are planes in the sky now”, said Ammar al Selmo, the head of the Civil Defence rescue service in the opposition-held east.
The group draws on ambulance workers and volunteers who dig survivors and dead bodies out of the rubble, often with their bare hands.
It said several of its own headquarters have been targeted.
A pro-government Iraqi militia commander in Aleppo said the aim was to capture all of Aleppo within a week.
A Western diplomat said on Friday the only way for the government to take the area that quickly would be to decimate it in “such a monstrous atrocity that it would resonate for generations”. The source said on Friday the operation could go on for some time.
A senior official in an Aleppo-based rebel faction, the Levant Front, told media outlet that the weapons appeared created to bring down entire buildings.
Russian Ministry of Defense said USA -led coalition forces had used two F-16s and two A-10 fighter jets to carry out the attack on Syrian regime forces.
The toll was expected to rise because people remained trapped under rubble, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Unicef spokesman Kieran Dwyer said the lack of running water could be “catastrophic” as residents now had to resort to contaminated water and were at risk from waterborne diseases.
The intense raids continued for a second night, after Damascus announced an operation late Thursday to recapture all of the city.
An unnamed Syrian military official was quoted by state media on Friday as saying that airstrikes and shelling in Aleppo would continue for an extended period and “include a ground offensive” into rebel-held areas.
Aleppo resident Yousef said that early on Saturday morning, President’s Assad’s forces struck with a powerful missile that shook everything, killing seven children and their mother.
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A Western diplomat speaking to a group of journalists in Beirut said that in NY, the impression from meeting with the Russians was that there is no new offensive, but there are been some mixed messages from the ground.
