LONDON - Three people were killed and around a dozen others remain missing after an explosion early on Saturday morning at a block of flats on the island of Jersey, off the coast of northern France.

“We now have, I regret to say, three fatalities,” Robin Smith, chief officer of the States of Jersey Police, told a news conference.

The explosion occurred just before 4am GMT (12 noon Singapore time) and the fire has since been extinguished.

Emergency services will continue to search for survivors through the night, chief Smith said.

He confirmed fire services had been called to the property on Friday evening before the explosion after residents had reported the smell of gas.

He did not comment on the cause of the explosion, and said that would be subject to investigation.

Mr Smith said a three-storey building, located near the harbour in the island’s capital, St Helier, had completely collapsed.

He said 20 to 30 people had been evacuated and that two “walking wounded” had received hospital treatment.

Jersey is a British Crown Dependency with a resident population of just over 100,000 people.

A gas leak was suspected as the cause of the blast . Security camera footage showed a fireball engulfing the bayside building followed by thick smoke, and nearby residents’ windows shook.

Jersey’s gas supplier, Island Energy, said it was working with the fire service to understand what happened.

BBC Jersey reporter Chris Craddock, who was near the scene earlier, said: “You could see glass, you could see rocks, you could see stones strewn across the area both on the pavement and on the road.”

One resident told the BBC she was woken up by what she thought was an earthquake.

“The bed started to shake, and there was this massive bang,” she said. “I checked online for news about an earthquake or lightning, I had no idea what it was.”

Chief Minister Kristina Moore said the island had seen “what amazing strength we have within our emergency services”, with 21 police officers, nine paramedics and 19 firefighters deployed to the scene.

The incident caps a tragic week for Jersey whose economy relies on banking, tourism and fishing. 

The Coast Guard on Friday abandoned a search for three Jersey fishermen missing for nearly 36 hours after their boat hit a freight ship and sank. 

Skipper Michael Michieli and two crew members went missing early on Thursday when their 18m wooden vessel collided with the Commodore Goodwill off Jersey. 

Fellow fisherman William Jackson said his friend Michieli was “probably one of the most prominent fishermen on the island and in the community”. 

“I was just shocked, absolutely shocked,” he told BBC Jersey. 

The Commodore Goodwill is owned by Condor Ferries, whose Jersey offices lie near the destroyed apartment block. REUTERS, AFP