Explosion rocks Paris district

A HUGE explosion probably caused by a gas leak gutted the ground floor of a building in a central Paris shopping district yesterday, seriously injuring at least 12 people, authorities said.

Police were on high alert in the capital for a ninth consecutive Saturday of “yellow vest” protests, with large parts of the city blocked off by riot police.

In recent years France has suffered jihadist militant attacks in Paris, Nice, Marseille and beyond. But the Paris prosecutor Remi Heitz was quick to rule out foul play.

“We still need to determine the circumstances and cause of the explosion but at this stage we can say it is clearly an accident, presumably a gas leak,” he told reporters.

A police source said the explosion tore apart a bakery. The force of the blast shattered nearby storefronts and rocked buildings hundreds of metres away, witnesses said. |