THE HAGUE: Rescue workers with sniffer dogs were scrabbling through the wreckage of a three-storey apartment block in The Hague that collapsed after an explosion and inferno in the early hours of Saturday. At least one person has died, the city's mayor said on Saturday, with little chance of finding more survivors under the rubble. "It has just been announced that one dead person has been recovered" from the debris, Mayor Jan van Zanen told reporters.
The cause of the blast was not immediately clear but police appealed for information about a car seen speeding away from the scene shortly after the explosion. At least five homes were destroyed in the incident, authorities said, but it remained unclear how many were trapped under the rubble. Emergency services took four people to hospital in the immediate aftermath of the building collapse, as elite rescue workers trained on recovering survivors from natural disasters scoured the debris.
A reporter on the scene saw dozens of fire trucks as firefighters battled the blaze from the ground and from higher positions. Police helicopters circled overhead. Debris was strewn across the street and several windows had been blown out. — AFP
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