At least two people have died, with a British national among four more missing, after an explosion destroyed a building housing a holiday rental property in the historic centre of Athens.<\/p>\n
The blast happened in the Plaka area of the Greek capital, a neighbourhood close to tourist sites such as the Acropolis.<\/p>\n
An American man and woman have died, with two more US tourists missing, AFP news agency reported citing local officials. A Greek national and UK national who lived in the building are also said to be missing.<\/p>\n
Pictures from the scene showed emergency service workers searching through rubble, with a gas leak the suspected cause of the blast.<\/p>\n
The body of a woman was found on Saturday morning, with a Greek fire official later telling reporters the body of a man had also been found.<\/p>\n
The tourists were confirmed to be missing when they did not arrive for their flight at Athens airport, Reuters news agency reported citing local police.<\/p>\n
Athens Mayor Haris Doukas said: “We are talking about an incredible disaster.”<\/p>\n
The three-storey building completely collapsed due to the force of the blast, with neighbouring buildings damaged and debris scattered across the road.<\/p>\n
Local media reported people were injured by material scattered across nearby streets and some buildings needed to be evacuated. <\/p>\n
Excavators and thermal imaging cameras have been used at the scene to search for survivors. <\/p>\n
The explosion happened on a small road situated between two of Athens’ most visited sites – the Acropolis and the Temple of Olympian Zeus.<\/p>\n
A UK Foreign Office spokesperson said: “We are aware of a suspected explosion in Athens and are in touch with the local authorities.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At least two people have died, with a British national among four more missing, after an explosion destroyed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":783208,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-783207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=783207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783207\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/783208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=783207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=783207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=783207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}