Ctvnews – Firefighters in Sicily were digging through the rubble of a collapsed apartment building Sunday in the search for six missing people after an explosion apparently caused by a gas leak killed at least three, authorities said.
The building was occupied by nine members of an extended family, and two visiting relatives — a heavily pregnant woman and her husband — were also on the premises when the explosion occurred late Saturday in the town of Ravanusa, firefighters said.
Sicily apartment block explosion leaves at least four dead
TheGuardian – Firefighters say the blast in the southern town of Ravanusa was probably caused by a gas leak.
Four people have been killed and five are missing in Sicily after an explosion caused a four-storey apartment building to collapse.
Two women were recovered alive from the rubble in the southern town of Ravanusa on Saturday night, and rescuers and sniffer dogs were searching for other people still missing.
The local unit of Italy’s civil protection service said on its Twitter feed that the death toll stood at four.
Television images showed a mass of rubble and wooden beams where the apartment block once stood, and neighbouring buildings charred and damaged.
Authorities said a gas leak was the probably cause of the explosion and that an investigation had been opened.
“The gas probably found a cavity in which to accumulate,” the head of firefighters in the province of Agrigento, Giuseppe Merendino, told the Rainews24 TV channel. “This pocket of gas would then have found an accidental trigger – a car, an elevator, an electrical appliance.”
Death toll rises to 7 in Sicily gas leak blast, 2 missing
Toronto Star – Rescue workers in Sicily have recovered four more bodies in the rubble of buildings that collapsed following a gas leak explosion, bringing to seven the number of confirmed dead, firefighters said Monday. Firefighters and civil protection agency volunteers were digging with their bare hands in the search for two more people believe still buried inside the pile of collapsed concrete and metal, more than a day and a half after the blast that authorities traced to a gas line. Two elderly women were rescued in the hours after the blast that hit the Sicilian town of Ravanusa on Saturday evening. Three other bodies were recovered on Sunday. Workers have recovered the bodies of a heavily pregnant woman, her husband and his parents, whom the young couple had been visiting. Four buildings collapsed in the explosion that was felt kilometers (miles) away.
Esplosione a Ravanusa: sette morti, due dispersi e 100 sfollati
Ansa – Tragedia nell’Agrigentino, quattro palazzine crollate e tre sventrate. Due donne tratte in salvo
A 36 ore dall’esplosione per una fuga di gas a Ravanusa che ha distrutto 4 palazzine e ne ha devastate altre 4, sale a sette il bilancio ufficiale delle vittime della tragedia. Ed è stata localizzata l’area dove “probabilmente”, spiega il comandante provinciale dei vigili del fuoco di Agrigento Giuseppe Merendino, “si trovano i due dispersi”, un uomo di 70 anni e il figlio di 30 anni, sepolti sotto le macerie.
