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MOSCOW - At least seven people were killed and more were feared dead after a suspected gas explosion in an apartment building in the Russian city of Kazan on Wednesday, local emergency services said.
"At this moment, we know of seven dead people," said an emergency services spokeswoman in the city, around 800km east of Moscow.
She said there had been "33 people registered as residents in the collapsed building, but nobody knows how many were in it at the time".
At least two people have now been rescued alive from the ruins, the emergencies services spokeswoman said. The explosion happened shortly after midnight on Wednesday.
Chances of finding survivors were slim because anyone under the rubble was likely to succumb to the cold. The temperature in Kazan was about - 20degC, said the spokeswoman. "The weather is too cold," she said.
Russian television showed emergency workers removing large chunks of debris from the remains of the devastated building, which was reduced to a pile of broken concrete and steel.
"We found our grandmother but we are still missing our grandfather and our seven-year-old girl," one unidentified woman who lived in the building said on Vesti-24 television channel.
Gas explosions have become commonplace in Russia's ageing apartment buildings.
- REUTERS
