At least six people were killed and 15 injured on Wednesday when a three-storey building was destroyed by an explosion in the Pakistani garrison city of Rawalpindi, police officials said.
”Six deaths have been confirmed so far,” local police chief Iftikhar Ahmed said.
Rescue workers were trying to pull out at least two people still trapped under the rubble, he said, adding that about 15 people had been admitted to a local hospital and three of them were in ”critical” condition.
”Initial reports say the explosion was caused by a gas cylinder in one of the shops in the building,” said another police officer, Mohammad Latif.
”Rescue work is in full swing to recover people trapped under the debris,” he said.
”We have shifted more than a dozen people to hospital,” rescue worker Mohammad Yunus, from the private Edhi ambulance service, said. ”Many people are feared trapped.”
An official at the General hospital in Rawalpindi, close to the capital, Islamabad, had earlier said the hospital had received ”around 20 injured and one dead”.
She said another person was in very critical condition, while several others had been admitted with fractured limbs. — Sapa-AFP