☰

Global

Two killed in Ukraine apartment block gas blast


    SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine (Reuters) - An explosion almost certainly caused by gas struck an apartment building in southern Ukraine Wednesday, sending concrete cascading down on two entrances and killing at least two people, officials said.

    Rescue workers had pulled out 16 people alive from the shattered five-storey block in Yevpatoria in Ukraine's Crimea peninsula, the Emergencies Ministry said.

    It said the rescuers, backed by two cranes, had recovered two bodies.

    Casualties caused by gas blasts in often crumbling apartment buildings are common occurrences in former Soviet republics, particularly in winter when residents use more heating.

    One blast in October 2007 killed 15 residents in Ukraine's central city of Dnipropetrovsk.

    (Writing by Ron Popeski)