Sad certainty after hours of use: a fireman in NRW dies, four others are seriously injured. The question remains: How did the explosion in a residential building happen?
Lienen (dpa) - After a gas explosion in a residential building in North Rhine-Westphalia, a fireman died on Saturday. The man was buried under the collapsed rubble of the house in Lienen near Osnabrück, a police spokesman said on Saturday evening.
A doctor had determined the firefighter's death. In the evening, the forces were still trying to recover the man's body. To do this, collapsed concrete parts that had wedged into each other had to be cleared aside.
Another trapped colleague was previously recovered from the partially collapsed house and hospitalized with serious injuries. Three other firefighters were also injured.
Residents had alarmed the fire department on Saturday morning because of the smell of gas. According to previous knowledge, the explosion occurred while the firefighters were looking for the origin of the smell. Parts of the house collapsed completely. The residents had previously been brought to safety. How the explosion could have happened was still unclear in the evening.
"This is a very depressing situation for the many helpers," said the police spokesman. There are emergency pastors on site who take care of those affected. "The tragic death of the fireman fills me with deep sadness," wrote Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) on Twitter. "I am thinking of his family, friends and his fire brigade friends."