Three die as gas blast rocks Madrid

MADRID: At least three people were killed on Wednesday when a huge explosion ripped through a building in Madrid, with officials confirming it was caused by a gas leak.

Images from the scene showed the walls on the top four or five storeys of the residential building in the heart of the La Latina neighbourhood had been blown out, with debris littered far and wide. A government official told Spain’s public television that the blast occurred as a team of workmen were repairing the building’s boiler.

Images broadcast on Spanish television showed cars destroyed by the force of the explosion and smoke billowing from the top floor of the six-storey building.

“I was just leaving a nearby clinic when I heard a very big explosion, it was so big I thought it was a bomb,” Valentin Moreno, a 48-year-old salesman, said.