Abdulmonam Eassa/AFP/Getty Images
Firefighters had been referred to as to a constructing in the fifth arrondissement of Paris, on June 21, 2023.
Paris
CNN
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A fiery gas explosion in central Paris resulted in accidents to no less than 37 individuals and drew tons of of firefighters to the scene on Wednesday afternoon.
Some 270 firefighters had been deployed to the scene close to Rue Saint Jacques in the city’s fifth arrondissement, and have contained the fire, Paris police chief Laurent Nunez instructed reporters.
Four individuals stay in crucial situation and officers say rescue staff are on the lookout for no less than two individuals regarded as lacking in the rubble.
“It’s possible that we will find dead bodies tonight, or we will find them alive,” French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin stated from the scene of the explosion.
Investigators nonetheless don’t know the way the gas explosion occurred, he stated, including: “There was no alarm sent out before the incident.”
The Paris prosecutor, who’s probing the incident, stated that early indicators point out that the gas explosion got here from inside the constructing that homes the Paris American Academy, in accordance with CNN affiliate, BFMTV.
Laure Beccuau, who visited the scene, stated investigators might be leaning on accounts from injured individuals in their inquiry.
An element of the constructing collapsed following the blast and fire, movies present. Smoke was seen billowing from the rubble earlier on Wednesday as rescue staff tried to sort out the blaze.
Paris American Academy, a trend and design college, describes itself on its web site because the “first bilingual design school” in the French capital
Kent State University, in the US state of Ohio, stated all its college students on the Paris American Academy are protected and accounted following the blast.
Locals had been additionally stopped from returning to their properties in surrounding streets by authorities in the aftermath of the explosion.
Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters
Smoke rises above rooftops with the Pantheon in the background.
One girl, Anne, instructed a CNN producer on the scene that she was inside her flat, round 500 meters (1,640 toes) from the location, when the explosion occurred.
“It felt like an earthquake, the windows banged against each other,” she stated.
Another girl who didn’t wish to give her identify and lives in a neighboring avenue instructed CNN that her doorways slammed shut from the explosion.
The native deputy mayor Édouard Civel later defined in a tweet that the affect had been attributable to a gas explosion.
Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo visited the scene afterward Wednesday, writing in a tweet, “My thoughts go first of all to the victims and their close ones.”
Authorities in Paris have opened an emergency response unit to deal with the aftermath of the explosion.
