MADRID (AP) – A powerful gas explosion ripped through a residential building in central Madrid on Wednesday, killing at least three people and ripping the facade of the structure.
A smoke tower rose from the building, where gas boiler repairs were being made, and churned down Toledo Street, near the city center. Aerial footage shared by Spain’s national police showed debris in a nearby schoolyard – though Madrid’s mayor said no one was seriously injured at the school.
At least eight people were injured in the explosion, one seriously, Madrid’s emergency services said in a tweet. And a technician who worked on the boiler is missing, according to the representative of the Spanish government for the Madrid region, José Manuel Franco, who confirmed the three dead.
A police spokesperson on site told reporters that firefighters tried to extinguish a small fire in the damaged building before bringing in search dogs and special rescue teams to search for possible survivors.
An Associated Press reporter saw rescuers carrying two bodies away from the area, one covered with a blue blanket by firefighters and another wrapped in reflective emergency sail.
The building belongs to the nearby Catholic parish of La Paloma and housed the offices and apartments for some of its priests, Madrid Archbishop Carlos Osoro told Spanish public broadcaster TVE, which confirmed that none of the clergy were among the victims.
Emy Lee Grau, an area resident who watched television in a building across the street, said the moment of the explosion was “terrifying.”
“Everything shook, it felt like the roof fell on us. We were terrified to see the amount of smoke coming out of the meetinghouse, ”the 20-year-old Madrid resident told The Associated Press.
A nearby nursing home was evacuated and no injuries were initially reported to residents, Madrid Mayor José Luis Martínez Almeida of Madrid told reporters at the scene. The home’s 55 residents were initially taken to a hotel across the street and later sent to other care homes, officials said.
Martínez Almeida also said minor damage had been found at a nearby school, where he said people suffered nothing more than “scratches”.
Neighbor Leire Reparaz said she heard the explosion and was not immediately sure where it came from.
‘We all thought it came 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.
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Associated Press photographer Paul White contributed to this report.