A nine-storey building partially collapsed today in Izhevsk, a city 1.000 kilometers from Moscow, leaving "dead and injured," local authorities said. "The circumstances under which the accident occurred are being investigated. "There are dead and injured," the city's 650.000-strong prosecutor's office said in a statement posted on its website. The local branch of the Ministry of Disaster Management clarified that the building collapsed at 16.41 local time.
He added that two people came out of the wreckage alive. Russia's Investigative Committee has undertaken to investigate the case. An official, Vera Filipova, said based on the first data, the authorities are oriented towards the possibility of an explosion due to a gas leak.
The images broadcast by the Russian TV channels show the collapsed facade of the building which is located near a busy intersection. "There was an explosion so big that my house was shaking," said a woman who lives next door. Explosions due to gas leaks are not uncommon in Russia. The most recent serious accident of this kind occurred in February 2016 in Yaroslavl, near Moscow, where seven people lost their lives.