2 dead, 10 injured, as building collapses in Acre

A couple was killed and ten other people were injured, including two seriously, when a building collapsed in the northern city of Acre early Monday morning.

Three to four other people were missing after daybreak, and it remained unclear whether they were still trapped in the wreckage or whether they had not been at home at the time of the blast.

Firefighters and paramedics were on the scene, treating the wounded and attempting to reach survivors.

“From initial reports from residents,” said Naftali Rotenberg, manager of the Carmel branch of Ichud Hatzalah, “it appears there was a gas explosion. The circumstances of the incident are still being checked by police and firefighters.”

Five families lived in the three-story building located in the old city of Acre.

One man in serious condition with head trauma was brought to Nahariya’s Western Galilee Medical Center.

Paramedics also brought to Nahariya two men in their twenties in moderate condition with bruising across their bodies, a lightly-injured 10-year-old girl who suffered light bruising and grazes, a lightly injured woman, and a one-and-a-half year old baby girl suffering from shock, according to United Hatzalah.

In January, a gas explosion in Jerusalem killed two parents and their 3-year-old child, and left 11 others injured, one of them critically.