Sicily: Death toll rises to seven and two still missing as multiple buildings collapse in gas explosion

Many of those killed in tragedy from single family

Rescuers work at the site of a gas explosion that caused several houses to collapse in Ravanusa, Sicily (via REUTERS)

Four more bodies have been pulled out of the rubble of several houses which collapsed after a suspected gas explosion in Sicily.

The total death toll of the disaster in the town of Ravanusa, a small community of 11,000 people close to the southern coast of Sicily, has now risen to at least seven people.

However, two others are missing and believed to still be trapped in the ruins of the four buildings which were mostly destroyed in the blast on Saturday evening.

Sniffer dogs have been brought in to search the rubble and the emergency services are working 24-hour shifts through the night to clear the debris.

"The rubble has to be removed carefully piece by piece to avoid other possible collapses, which could hit both the firefighters... but also the people we are looking for," a spokesman for the fire service spokesman, Luca Cari, told the Reuters news agency.

So far rescue workers, sometimes digging through the collapsed buildings by hand, have found the bodies of a nine-month pregnant woman, her husband and both her parents, who the young couple were visiting.

Two elderly women were dug out alive from the ruins shortly after the houses collapsed.

Although the precise cause of the explosion has not yet been confirmed, authorities said it was likely to have been caused by a gas leak.

Italgas, the operator of Italy’s national gas grid, offered its condolences and told reporters it had not had any reports of leaking gas in the last week.

About 50 people living in the neighbourhood have been displaced, with some temporarily housed in a local school, the town’s mayor has said, although local media reported that number to be up to three times higher.

Rosa Carmina, 80, who was pulled from the rubble along with her sister-in-law who lived on the floor above, told La Repubblica from hospital that the lights went out suddenly “and the ceiling and floors collapsed”.

However, three of the four collapsed buildings are thought to have been unoccupied, ensuring the casualty numbers were much lower than could have been expected given the scale of the disaster.