An explosion brought down a small residential building in the Plaka district of Athens shortly before 8 a.m. local time (about 1 a.m. EDT) on Friday, Sept. 25, Greece’s Hellenic Fire Service said; the Fire Service said six people were pulled from the rubble unconscious. All six died and four of them were Americans, officials said, according to CBS News and AFP; the blast happened near the Acropolis, one of Greece’s best-known landmarks.
Investigators have not determined the cause; Athens Mayor Haris Doukas has called a gas leak the most likely explanation, according to CBS/AFP and the Greek news site enikos. The Fire Service’s arson-crimes directorate is still examining the sequence of explosion, fire and collapse to determine the causes, working under the Athens First Instance Prosecutor’s Office alongside the Hellenic Police. No official cause has been confirmed.
What happened
The building stood on Lysikratous Street. The six people recovered from the rubble were taken away by ambulances of EKAB, Greece’s emergency medical service, the Fire Service said. On Saturday, Doukas said the bodies of the six people who had been missing had been recovered. Separately, firefighters freed two women from an adjacent building on Friday morning; they were also taken by ambulance. The Fire Service ran the rescue under earthquake-collapse protocols without an overnight pause, deploying 30 firefighters, six vehicles and three search dogs, along with city machinery to clear debris.
The victims
According to CBS/AFP, officials said four Americans were among the six people who died. The New York Times, cited by CBS, reported the American victims were a family of four — a couple, their son and his girlfriend. The family had been renting an apartment on the first floor and were preparing to go to the airport hours later for their return to the United States when the blast occurred, according to the Kathimerini newspaper, also cited by CBS. The other two people killed were an elderly British man and his Greek wife, who lived on the building’s second floor, according to Greece’s state broadcaster ERT, as reported by CBS. As of Saturday, Greek authorities had not released the American victims’ names, ages or hometowns, CBS reported.
What caused it — known and unknown
The Fire Service says the building collapsed after an explosion, and gas distributor Enaon EDA sent crews to the scene after a gas smell was reported there, the Fire Service said. Enaon EDA’s own statement, reported by the Greek outlet naftemporiki, said checks were under way but did not identify a cause. No agency has confirmed a gas leak, and there has been no finding that Enaon’s network failed. The mayor’s view is not an official finding; the arson investigators and the prosecutor’s office have not announced a cause.
The warnings dispute
There is a dispute over whether anyone had raised an alarm before the blast. The Fire Service says no complaint about a gas smell in the area had reached it beforehand, and the mayor has said no official complaint reached the city, either. Separately, the neighborhood’s residents’ association wrote to the city and utility companies a year earlier warning of the risk of gas leaks or short circuits and urging a fire drill, according to a letter published by Kathimerini and reported by CBS/AFP. A citizens’ group said on social media that a resident of the street had alerted authorities after smelling a possible gas leak, according to CBS/AFP. Neither the residents’ account nor the officials’ statements that no complaint reached them has been independently verified.
What happens next
The Athens First Instance Prosecutor’s Office is overseeing the investigation into the cause, with the Fire Service’s arson specialists and the Hellenic Police. Doukas said two neighboring buildings are currently unusable, and cracks have been found in the building across the street; engineers are inspecting the structures to determine whether they can remain standing or must be demolished. Much of Lysikratous Street remains closed. The pastor of a nearby church said it would hold Sunday’s service outdoors because of damage from the blast.