A strong explosion, which was caused by gas in a music school, followed by a fire, shook the 5th arrondissement of Paris this Wednesday afternoon and caused at least 17 injuries, 12 of them in serious condition, advances the AFP. The neighborhood’s deputy mayor, Édouard Civel, wrote on Twitter that several buildings were on fire.
Police said an operation was “underway” on Rue Saint-Jacques and urged local residents to “avoid the area”.
As of 5:00 p.m., around 200 firefighters had been mobilized. According to Le Parisien, all the windows in the buildings near the three-story music school at 277 rue Saint-Jacques were blown out and the buildings were evacuated.
The mayoress of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, went to the scene and some witnesses have already recounted what they saw at the time of the explosion.
“I was at the gate of Val-de-Grâce. I heard a huge crash, turned my head and saw a ball of fire 20 or 30 meters high. I started running. And the building collapsed with a huge noise. I smelled gas, but it took me several minutes to understand. The police arrived early and told us to leave the area,” Quentin, a student who witnessed the explosion, told Le Parisien.
Source: TSF
