MARSEILLE - Fire was hindering the search for up to 10 people missing Sunday in the rubble of an apartment building that collapsed in French Mediterranean city Marseille, with authorities warning the blaze could continue for hours.
Five people from neighbouring buildings were hurt in an apparent explosion that destroyed the four-storey block around 12:40 am (2240 GMT Saturday).
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told reporters at the scene that there were "between four and 10 people beneath the rubble".
"We don't know if they're alive or dead," he added.
Multiple witnesses spoken to by AFP said they had heard the sound of an explosion.
"I was sleeping and there was this huge blast that really shook the room. I was shocked awake as if I had been dreaming," said Saveria Mosnier, who lives in a street near the site in the La Plaine neighbourhood.
"We very quickly smelled a strong gas odour that hung around, we could still smell it this morning," she added.
Smoke was still rising from the mound of rubble Sunday afternoon, an AFP photographer saw from a nearby building.
"We have to be prepared to have fatalities in this terrible tragedy," Marseille mayor Benoit Payan had earlier told journalists at the scene.
More than 100 firefighters were battling the blaze in the ruins of the building, believed to have one apartment on each floor.
The intense heat as the building burns has kept search dogs from picking through the rubble, with Darmanin saying it would be "several hours... maybe even longer" before the fire was out.
"Time is of the essence" to discover possible survivors among the ruins, Marseille fire chief Lionel Mathieu said.
The rescuers' task has been complicated by the partial collapse of one of the adjoining buildings, where eight people had to be brought down by ladder after taking refuge on a roof terrace.
Other buildings on the street were evacuated and around 180 residents put up in schools, while an aid centre for people looking for missing family members or loved ones has been opened in a neighbouring district.
"I am thinking of those affected and of their loved ones... thank you to the firefighters and emergency workers," President Emmanuel Macron wrote on Twitter.
- Cause of blast unclear -
Deputy mayor Yannick Ohanessian told journalists at the scene that "several witnesses have reached us this morning to say there was a suspicious smell of gas".
"A lot of families in the neighbourhood are afraid," said Arnaud Dupleix, the president of a parents' association at the nearby Tivoli elementary school, who sprang into action to coordinate aid for those evacuated.
Eight were killed in Marseille in 2018 when two dilapidated buildings in the working-class district of Noailles caved in.
The accident cast a harsh light on the city's housing standards, with aid groups saying 40,000 people live in shoddy structures.
"There was no danger notice for this building, and it is not in a neighbourhood identified as having substandard housing," said Christophe Mirmand, prefect of the Bouches-du-Rhone region.