PARIS – French rescuers combed the rubble for a missing individual on Thursday, a day after a blast swept through a central Paris building, injuring four people gravely.
On Wednesday afternoon, an explosion ripped through a building on Saint-Jacques Street in the 5th district, near the Luxembourg Gardens and on the outskirts of the Latin Quarter, a popular tourist destination in Paris.
According to officials, four persons were critically hurt in the blast, while 33 others had minor injuries.
“The search is ongoing,” police said on Thursday, adding that rescuers were still hunting for one individual who had not been found – down from two earlier in the day.
The explosion blew out windows up to 400 metres (yards) distant and was followed by a large fire that caused the building, which housed a fashion school, to collapse.
The blaze was brought under control with the help of 70 fire engines and 270 firemen.
The security cordon was lowered early Thursday, allowing journalists and onlookers to get closer to the stack of rubble in front of the structure.
A solitary fire hose was still sometimes spraying the remnants of the structure, but some shops on the blast’s street had reopened.
The mayor of the 5th district stated that the collapse was caused by a gas explosion, however this has yet to be confirmed by other officials.
Some witnesses interviewed by AFP reported smelling petrol in the street before the explosion, but investigators said they did not have enough evidence to pinpoint the cause with certainty.
Prosecutors quickly initiated an investigation into the causes.
Several gas-related explosions have occurred in the French capital.
A suspected leak in a hidden gas pipe burned a building on the Rue de Trevise in the ninth district in January 2019, killing four persons, including two firefighters.
The shockwave blew out scores of surrounding windows, forcing dozens of families to flee their homes for months.
Four years after the disaster, much of the street remains closed.