Four people were killed and five others were missing when the building collapsed

AFP, Released Sunday, December 12, 2021 at 9:39 p.m.

Four people have been killed and five others are missing after a four-storey building collapsed in an explosion in the Sicilian city of Ravanusa, according to a new report from local authorities on Sunday.

An earlier report had said two were dead and seven were missing.

Two women were found alive beneath the rubble and paramedics, with the help of dogs, are still searching for the missing.

The death toll was four, the local civil defense said on Twitter.

Television footage showed a huge pile of rubble and wooden beams lying on the ground, and neighboring buildings burned and damaged.

According to officials who began the investigation, a gas explosion may have been the catastrophe on Saturday evening.

“The gas is probably concentrated in a pit. This gas pocket can detect an accidental trigger: a car, an elevator, an electric utility,” Agrigento fire chief Rainews 24 commented on Giuseppe Merendino.

In the aftermath of the explosion, Ravanusa’s mayor, Carmello de Angelo, appealed on Facebook, “Anyone with shovels and bulldozers.” “It was a disaster,” he said.

About 50 people have been displaced, Mayor Rainews24 said.