Belgium apartment building collapses, injuring at least 20; some still trapped

Belgium apartment building collapses after blast

LIEGE, Belgium — A five-story apartment building caught fire and collapsed Wednesday after an apparent gas explosion, killing one person and injuring at least 21 people, including a teenager rescued from the rubble, an official said.

The blast occurred at about 2 a.m. (0100 GMT) and firefighters were still digging through the wreckage on Wednesday night looking for other survivors, officials said.

“There are still three people missing. This is the minimum that we know of, but the total can still rise,” Belgian Interior Minister Annemie Turtelboom told VRT radio. She declined to identify the body pulled from the wreckage until the victim’s family had been notified.

Smoke and small fires were making the search difficult, especially for the sniffer dogs being used. Bricks and twisted metal remained piled yards (meters) high.

Belgian King Albert II visited the site to show his support for the rescue workers and his sympathy for the victims, including an injured teenage girl who was rescued from the wreckage earlier in the day.

“It is likely there was a gas explosion,” Liege Mayor Willy Demeyer said. There had been a gas alert in the building over the weekend, but no leak was discovered, he said.

Immediately after the blast, a fire raged through the building and thick smoke billowed into the air. The blast shattered windows in nearby City Hall and spread debris and dust throughout the adjacent streets in downtown Liege.

“It was such a noise that we thought the explosion happened inside City Hall, even though the actual explosion was more than one hundred meters (yards) away, so the whole neighborhood was woken up and devastated,” said Demeyer. Most of the historic center of the city was closed because of the explosion.

The 21 people reported injured were more than the dozen residents who officially lived in the building. But the apartments often house university students who may have had guests sleeping over when the blast occurred.