Blast likely occurred on roof, police say, causing second floor to collapse; all the injured were foreign workers.
By YAAKOV LAPPIN, JPOST.COM STAFFMagen David Adom ambulances 311(photo credit: Reuters)
An explosion occurred Friday evening in a building on Pinkas Street in Netanya, causing a number of apartments to collapse. Police said the blast originated on the first floor, and that the injured residents resided on the second floor.The blast, which happened in Netanya's old industrial area, also caused a restaurant on the first floor of the building to go up in flames.RELATED:'Gas explosion' rocks building in Netanya; 4 dead, 90 hurt Gas explosion kills elderly woman, collapses homePolice spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the reason for the blast was unclear and it had caused a wall in a restaurant to collapse.Channel 2 said an electrical short-circuit may have caused the incident, rather than crime or terrorist related reasons.Magen David Adom teams evacuated eleven injured people to hospitals. One person was moderately injured, while the remaining people sustained light injuries from smoke inhalation, police said.Paramedics took seven of the injured to Laniado Medical Center in Netanya and the other four, including the moderately injured man, to Hillel Yafe Hospital.All of the injured were foreign workers carrying out various labor jobs in Netanya.Firefighters gained control over the blaze which allowed police and firefighters to continue investigating the cause of the blast.In June, a gas explosion in another Netanya building killed three teenage girls and a young man and injured over ninety people. Two men, one of which was a gas technician, were arrested over that blast.
