At least two people were killed on Wednesday and several were injured in Madrid when a church building partially collapsed in a massive explosion believed to have been caused by a gas leak, reports said.
“It appears that there has been a gas explosion in the building,” Mayor José Luis Martinez-Almeida told reporters on the ground, where hundreds of rescue workers filled the debris-strewn streets.
He told Telemadrid that two people died in the blast, of which officials later said at least eight people were injured, one seriously.
“At least four floors have been affected by the explosion in the building on Calle Toledo,” the emergency services tweeted.
“The priests who live on the fifth and sixth floors are doing well. We are trying to find a volunteer to work with us, ”Madrid Vicar General Avelino Revilla told Telemadrid, Reuters said.
A fire that started in the building on Toledo Street made it more difficult for rescuers and firefighters to search for other possible survivors, the mayor said.
The building provided residential training for priests and provided meals for homeless people, a neighbor told Reuters.
A nearby nursing home was evacuated, although no direct injuries were reported to residents.
No serious damage was reported at a nearby school, which, however, would initially be vacant as classes had not yet resumed after a record snowfall in the Spanish capital on January 9.
The mayor later said there were a few people, but they only got ‘scratches’.
Leire Reparaz, who lives near the Puerto de Toledo, a local monument, said she heard a loud explosion.
‘We didn’t know where the sound was coming from. We all thought it was from the school. We went up the stairs to the top of our building and we could see the structure of the building and a lot of gray smoke, ”said the 24-year-old.
Videos and images posted on social media showed a plume of smoke from the building.
“The noise was very loud, very loud actually,” Lorenzo Fomento, a 43-year-old Italian salesman working in a nearby apartment, told Agence France-Presse by phone.
“I’ve never heard anything so loud,” he added.
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