Powerful blast at apartment building in Romania’s capital kills 3 and injures at least 13

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — A powerful explosion tore through two stories of an apartment building in Romania’s capital on Friday, killing three people and injuring at least 13 others, authorities said.

The explosion affected the fifth and sixth floors of the eight-story building, according to the capital’s Inspectorate for Emergency Situations. More than a dozen emergency vehicles, including 11 fire engines and four mobile intensive care units, were dispatched to the scene of the blast on Calea Rahovei in Bucharest’s Sector 5.

While the cause of the fatal blast was not immediately clear, the area’s gas distributor, Distrigaz Sud Retele, said in a statement Friday that it had received reports of a gas smell a day earlier and deployed emergency teams who shut off the supply after discovering the presence of natural gas at the building.

The company added that it had been called out again on Friday and found the seal applied the previous day “torn.” It expressed its “full compassion for the families of the victims and all those affected” by the blast.

Romania’s Health Ministry said victims had been reported with polytrauma and burns. The ministry later said that one of three people killed was found dead under a concrete slab on the building’s sixth floor. At least 13 people were transported to hospitals in the capital.

All residents were evacuated from the building and rescuers carried out search operations to identify anyone trapped. Students and teachers at a nearby school were also evacuated as a precaution, Bucharest’s School Inspectorate said.

“A terrible tragedy struck Bucharest today,” Stelian Bujduveanu, Bucharest’s acting mayor, said in a post on Facebook. “We are with the bereaved families and all those going through an unimaginable ordeal … We’ll leave no one alone in this tragedy.”

Video footage shared by emergency authorities showed the facades of corner apartments on two stories badly mangled by the blast, which appeared to have also blown out windows in neighboring apartments. Rubble was strewn across the street below.

“Following the explosion, another nearby apartment block was affected, where detached construction elements from the building’s facade were observed,” emergency authorities said in a statement.