A powerful blast believed to be a gas explosion ripped open an office building in the centre of Prague, injuring at least 35 people and sending shockwaves through the Old Town tourist district.
The blast shattered windows in the scenic area of charming streets and picture postcard buildings, sending glass flying. Authorities closed a wide area around the site and some tourists were stranded on street corners with trolleys loaded with luggage, unable to get into their hotels.
Authorities said two or three people were still believed to be missing, but sniffer dogs searching the rubble had not indicated that anyone was buried and the prime minister said it appeared no one had died.
The explosion occurred on Divadelni Street at about 10am, in one of a row of several-story tall brick buildings dating back about a century. The street was covered with rubble and police evacuated people from nearby buildings.
"It's really immense and huge, almost like after an air assault or a bomb explosion," Prime Minister Petr Necas said after visiting the scene. "So, if we really prove what we think right now, which is that nobody died, it was very lucky."
Prague mayor Bohuslav Svoboda ruled out a terrorist attack, saying the blast was a gas explosion.
Officials had estimated that up to 40 people were injured, but Zdenek Schwarz, head of rescue service in Prague later narrowed that down to 35. He told reporters that 30 of the injured were taken to hospitals for treatment, two of them with serious injuries.
He said five people were treated at the scene, some bandaged and with faces still bloody.
Among the injured were two Portuguese women, another two women from Kazakhstan, a man from Slovakia and a German woman, although none of their injuries was serious, the rescue service said.
"There was glass everywhere and people shouting and crying," Vaclav Rokyta, a Czech student, told the Associated Press near the scene.
"I was in the bathroom, no windows, the door was closed. Honestly, if I had been in my bed I would have been covered in glass," said ZB Haislip, a student from Raleigh, North Carolina, who was in a nearby building.
The Faculty of Social Sciences of Prague's Charles University and the Film and TV School of the Academy of Sciences of Performing Arts are located next to the damaged building.
The road closures caused major traffic disruption and confused thousands of tourists.
