A young woman was seriously injured and two other people were slightly injured in an explosion and fire in an apartment building in Essen. The resident jumped out of the window and was lying seriously injured on the street when emergency services arrived on Saturday evening, a fire department spokesman said. She was taken to a burn center in Bochum.
Since the structural structure of the two-story house on Westfalenstrasse was destroyed, the fire department cannot yet enter the building. It cannot be ruled out that there are still people inside. The resident of the exploded apartment is considered missing after the detonation. According to police, five people were reported to be in the house.
“The street is like a field of rubble”
“You cannot survive the violence that took place here,” said the fire department spokesman early on Sunday morning. The emergency services have so far only been able to see the inside of the house from the outside. The rubble from walls and ceilings inside the building is up to 60 meters high. In addition, the fire has not yet been extinguished. When the first police officers arrived at the scene on Saturday evening, both floors were completely ablaze.
The pressure wave caused by the explosion also destroyed a wall of the directly adjacent residential building. Two residents from the neighboring house were initially treated on site by the emergency services and were taken to hospital with minor injuries. Three other people were also treated by emergency services but were uninjured. As a precautionary measure, the fire department worked through the city of Essen to ensure accommodation for those affected.
“The street is like a field of rubble, everything is full of rubble and broken glass,” said the fire department spokesman. The cause of the explosion in the Steele district is still unclear. According to initial findings, the incident happened in an apartment on the ground floor. From there the fire immediately spread to the rest of the building.
