One dead in gas explosion outside Moscow

MOSCOW: One person was killed and four were injured when a gas explosion ripped through a five-storey residential building outside Moscow on Saturday, authorities said.

The blast took place in the town of Orekhovo-Zuyevo during stay-at-home orders from authorities trying to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

A spokeswoman for the emergencies ministry, Zhanna Terekhova, said one person was killed and another four were injured when a section in the middle of the brick building collapsed in the town north of Moscow.

Terekhova said in televised remarks that 10 flats have been partially destroyed and officials were trying to establish how many people lived there.

The rest of the building appeared intact.

National television broadcast footage of mangled heaps of concrete as locals — some wearing masks — gathered at the scene.

Residents of the damaged building have been moved to a school nearby, officials said.

Gennady Panin, head of the Orekhovo-Zuyevo city district, said six people have been pulled from under the debris.

Three people, apparently from among those six, were in intensive care, he added.

Witness Alexei Muranov, who lives near the damaged building, said he stood near the window when he was pushed back by a shock wave.

“At first things were not clear, it looked like a car blast, there was a little bit of smoke,” Muranov said in televised remarks.

“And then people ran there,” he said, adding that several floors had collapsed. “Only a roof has remained.” The Investigative Committee said the gas explosion took place on the third floor of the building.