Five dead and two missing as blast rips apart shop and flat
FIVE people, many of whom are thought to be related, have been killed in an explosion that ripped apart a convenience store and the flat above it.
Police updated the death toll last night after finding a body among the rubble. Rescue efforts had to stop amid fears another property could collapse.
Residents in the streets off Hinckley Road in Leicester said the “enormous” explosion shook properties up to 500 metres away and described how people clawed through the rubble in the search for survivors.
The blast took place at the recently opened Zabka Leicester convenience store at 7pm on Sunday night. A family had just moved into a flat above, and it is feared many among the dead could be related. Krishna Rungen said his brother-in-law and 15-year-old nephew were pulled out of the rubble and were in hospital while his sister and her two older sons were missing, along with the girlfriend of one of the sons.
Mr Rungen, 69, from Leicester, said: “I understand the 15-year-old was pulled out by a passer-by and he’s all right. He said they were watching TV and the next thing he knows bricks were falling over him, and then it was pitch black. He still doesn’t know his family are missing.”
Aram Kurd, 33, the shop owner, was in the storeroom when he heard a “loud bang”. He called out for Victoria, an employee, in the shop, but nothing has been heard from her since.
Firefighters said last night they were still working to establish the cause of the explosion but that nothing indicated it was terror-related.
Search and rescue crews worked throughout the day, sifting through rubble in a bid to find survivors.