Four in critical condition after Paris building blast

An explosion potentially caused by a gas leak ripped through a building in central Paris on Wednesday, leaving four people fighting for their lives and causing a wave of destruction, officials said.

Rescue workers were in the evening still searching the rubble for two missing individuals who had not been accounted for, according to French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin.

He told reporters at the scene that four seriously injured victims were in a life-threatening condition, while 33 others had sustained lesser injuries.

The blast was followed by a major fire which caused the building, housing a fashion school, to collapse in a historic district of the French capital.

Images showed wreckage littering the area around the building, as the flames smoldered.

Some 70 fire trucks and 270 firefighters battled the blaze. Nine doctors were also at the scene.

The fire service had said there had been "an explosion" which had "caused the collapse of two buildings", but police later said only one building had collapsed.

The blast was caused by a "gas explosion", the district's mayor said on Twitter, although this was not confirmed by other officials.

Florence Berthout, mayor of the 5th district in central Paris, said the main building affected is a private fashion school -- called Paris American Academy -- adjoining the former Val-de-Grace military hospital.

SS