4 killed in blast
British building collapses in explosion in Leicester
Five people have been killed and four more are in hospital, with one having serious injuries, after an explosion destroyed a shop in the English city of Leicester on Sunday night.
The blast in the city’s Hinckley Road area happened in a Polish supermarket which local newspaper the Leicester Mercury reported as having only opened in January, with an apartment above it.
A local resident was quoted by the BBC as saying it was like hearing “a big thud, like an earthquake”.
No details about the dead and injured have yet been released, nor has there been any suggestion of a cause for the explosion, although local police have said there is no immediate indication of any link to terrorism.
Rescue services continued to search the ruins on Monday morning amid fears more people may be trapped, but Matt Cane, group manager at Leicestershire Fire and Rescue Service, told reporters the likelihood of finding any survivors was small.
“When you look at the pictures of the building it looks incredibly unlikely that we would find anybody, but we are absolutely committed to search and rescue at this stage,” he said.
“There is a possibility that there could be voids and areas of the building where people could still be alive following the collapse. It is a severe collapse and fire, but a scene like this is something that fire and rescue services are trained to deal with.”
Pictures and videos posted on Twitter at the time showed flames reaching up into the sky. Six fire engines were sent to the scene, and the public were advised to avoid the area.
The Leicester Mercury reported that debris had been blown across the street, and quoted a local resident as saying: “We heard an absolutely massive explosion. It was pretty frightening.
“We went to look out of the upstairs windows and saw loads of smoke, and then a few seconds later massive orange flames.”
About 28 properties nearby were temporarily left without power following the explosion.
Firefighters are expected to remain on the site for several days and say it is too early to say what might have caused the blast.
Leicester, in the center of England, has long been one of Britain’s most culturally diverse cities, with a large population of people from the Asian subcontinent and many other ethnicities.
We went to look out of the upstairs windows and saw loads of smoke, and then a few seconds later massive orange flames.”
A Leicester resident