June 22, 2024. On Wednesday afternoon, a blast took place in the central Paris that left more than 30 people injured. This happened due to an explosion inside a building at Rue Saint Jacques which is situated at the fifth arrondissement of Paris. The building was said to house a fashion and design school.
The cause of the explosion could not be identified but the local bystanders said that they could sense a strong smell of gas after the explosion. This cause is not confirmed yet.
This incident resulted in the collapse of the building and the local firefighting units to rush into the scene. More than 270 firefighters and about 70 rescue vehicles were present at the scene controlling the fire, evacuating the public and the nearby properties. About 37 people are said to be injured as of now and among them, 4 are in critical condition.
The firefighters did manage to control the fire and prevent it from spreading to other places but they are still searching through the rubbles of the building as there is said to be 2 people missing. These were said by the local police. They are using sniffer dogs which helped find the possible locations of the people who were missing under the rubble. The Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau confirmed that the explosion happened inside the building and that the building was engulfed by the fire after the explosion, as seen through the CCTV footage upon initial investigation. This initial information through the CCTV gives the indication that the fire was caused by a gas explosion. The prosecutor also added that an investigation has started to see whether this explosion was intentional or not and whether this caused by the negligence of relevant authorities.
The area is one of the Upper-class neighbourhoods of Paris which is more popular for its tourists and student populations. Many of the witnesses who were at a safe distance from the explosion told the media about their experiences, some said that they heard a loud boom and could smell gas in the air, some saw huge flames rising above, some said that they heard a bang and later saw huge clouds of smokes rising and that they could not process what was going on. It even felt like an earthquake according to a witness who was about half a kilometer away from the blast site.
The area was blocked off by the authorities and the local residents were also prevented from going there. But after a while the crowd movement there again became normal as Paris was celebrating the summer solstice and World Music Day. And there were ample crowd movements in the local bars and cafes.
Paris has a dense population of more than 2million people living there and gas explosions are not infrequent there. A gas explosion back in 2019 resulted in the death of four people and left many injured.
