Rescuers have found a woman’s handbag believed to belong to one of four tourists staying in a central Athens building that collapsed in a suspected gas explosion on Friday morning.

Six people are missing following the blast: an elderly couple who lived on the second floor of the building and the tourists, who were staying in a short-term rental apartment on the first floor.

Kathimerini understands that none of the four tourists boarded a scheduled flight from Athens airport.

The short-term rental had been booked by a British national. His American-Albanian wife, their son and the son’s partner were also travelling with him.

According to relatives of the elderly couple and local residents, the husband had serious health problems and limited mobility.

Authorities are investigating the cause of the explosion, with a natural gas leak among the main scenarios being examined. There was a natural gas connection on the second floor, while witnesses reported a strong smell of gas before the explosion.

The powerful blast on Lysikratous Street shook the capital’s tourist district of Plaka at around 7.35 a.m.

Rescue crews, assisted by a sniffer dog, are searching the rubble for the missing people.

The Fire Service said the explosion occurred in an old two-storey building in Plaka, the historic district at the foot of the Acropolis. The building collapsed, while neighbouring buildings were also damaged.

Firefighters rescued two women from an adjacent building, with police saying both were being taken to hospital. Local media and a resident said a passer-by was also slightly injured in the blast.

“An elderly couple lived upstairs, on the second floor,” resident Andreas Martzaklis said, adding that he did not know whether they had been inside at the time of the explosion or had managed to get out. He said one apartment in the collapsed building had been operating as a short-term rental, while the others were privately owned.

“Who got out of the building that is destroyed, we don’t know anything,” said Martzaklis, who lives in a nearby building and heard the blast while drinking his morning coffee.

The people rescued by firefighters from the adjacent building were all tourists, Martzaklis added.

The pastor of a nearby church said Sunday’s service would be held outdoors because the church had been damaged by the explosion.

“Of course we went in. It was heartbreaking. From the bottom to the top, there is no window that has not been broken,” said Giotis Kantartzis, pastor of the First Greek Evangelical Church in Athens.

Video footage from the scene showed rubble strewn across the street, with parked cars smashed by falling debris. [Additional reporting: AP]

This story has been updated. 

Source: Ekathimerini.com