At least two dead, several hurt as blast rocks Madrid
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Firefighters on a ladder approaching a damaged building in Madrid after a strong explosion ripped through it. The blast yesterday seemed to have been caused by a gas leak, officials said.
PHOTO: REUTERS
MADRID • At least two people were killed yesterday when a huge explosion ripped through a building in Madrid, in what appeared to be caused by a gas leak, officials said.
The emergency services tweeted that two people had died, while another person was seriously injured and six had suffered light injuries in the blast in Calle de Toledo.
Calle de Toledo is a historic street in central Madrid between the Puerta de Toledo, a local landmark, and the Plaza Mayor. The building is next to a school, which said on Twitter that no one was injured there.
"It seems there was a gas explosion in the building," Madrid Mayor Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida told reporters at the scene, where hundreds of police and rescuers filled the streets.
He also cautioned that the death toll was preliminary and that the number could rise.
Next to the building is also an elder-care home.
No one there was hurt, La Paloma residence said in a statement on its website.
Images from the scene showed the walls on the top four or five storeys had been blown out, with debris littered far and wide.
Nine fire-fighting crews and 11 ambulances were dispatched to the scene, with hundreds of police and rescuers filling the street, which was completely closed off to traffic and pedestrians, media reported. "At least four floors have been affected by the explosion in the building in Calle Toledo," the emergency services tweeted.
Images broadcast on Spanish television showed cars destroyed by the blast and smoke billowing from the top floor of a building.
The building belonging to the Catholic Church was a complex that provided residential training for priests and also gave meals to homeless people, a person living nearby said.
"The noise was very loud, very loud, really," Mr Lorenzo Fomento, a 43-year-old Italian salesman who was working from home at a nearby apartment, told Agence France-Presse by telephone.
"I never heard something as loud before," he added.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS, NYTIMES
