Sicily apartment blast claims 4 lives
Rome, Dec. 12: Four people were killed and five were missing after an explosion caused a fourstorey apartment building to collapse on the Italian island of Sicily, authorities said Sunday.
Two women were recovered alive from the rubble in the southern town of Ravanusa after the collapse on Saturday night, and rescuers and sniffer dogs were still searching to locate the missing.
The death count from the disaster shifted throughout the morning, and Sicily’s regional civil protection unit confirmed at 10:07 GMT Sunday on its Facebook page that three people were confirmed dead and not four, as they had reported earlier.
The local unit of Italy’s civil protection service confirmed on its Twitter feed that the death toll currently stood at four.
Television images showed a mass of rubble and wooden beams in a large empty space where the building once stood, with neighbouring buildings charred and damaged.
It was not immediately clear how many buildings collapsed in the explosion. Initial reports cited one apartment building but Sicily's regional civil protection unit said on its website that “four buildings were involved” in the incident. Local news reports said as many as 10 buildings were affected.
Firefighters sorted through the tall pile of concrete, in which various ovens, air conditioners and other domestic appliances could be seen.
The explosion was likely caused by a gas leak, said authorities, who have opened an investigation.
“The gas probably found a cavity in which to accumulate,” the head of firefighters in the province of Agrigento, Giuseppe Merendino, said.
“This pocket of gas would then have found an accidental trigger: A car, an elevator, an electrical appliance.”
Soon after the explosion Saturday night, Ravanusa Mayor Carmello D’Angelo appealed on Facebook for “everyone available who has shovels and bulldozers.” “There has been a disaster.” About 50 people have been displaced, D’Angelo said. —