27 February 2012, 15:21.

      A part of a residential house in Astrakhan has collapsed after an explosion today at 1 p.m. (Moscow time). As a result of the explosion, the second entrance of the 6-entrance house tumbled down to the ground floor. 

      No casualties were reported yet. Emergency services said that two people were rescued. Their condition is unknown. The number of people in the building is being defined.

      The preliminary cause of the explosion is a gas leak. According to local officials, there was a shop situated on the ground floor of the building, and there also was a big renovation in one of the flats on the fourth floor. 

      One of the witnesses of the explosion says there can be several people under the rubble, who tried to rescue the first victims. 

      "At first there was an explosion, somewhere in the area of the second of the third floor, and then these floors and the front wall collapsed. I saw two people were struggling out of there. We went to help and at that moment the other floors collapsed. I saw two people were buried, and some others stayed inside the collapsed buiding", he said.

      It is not the first accident involving gas in Russia this year. On February 14, gas cylinder exploded in a popular café , placed in the city centre of Volgograd. Twenty people were injured. And earlier, on January 9, there was a big explosion in an Italian restaurant in southwestern Moscow, when at least 4 people were killed and about 40 were injured.

      Update 28 February 2012, 11:10.

      Read an update on the rescue operation.

      

Source: Lenta.ru Interfax Gazeta.ru

      Related News: Restaurant Explosion in Moscow (10.01.2012)

      Another Big Explosion in a Cafe, Twenty Injured (15.02.2012)