British Man and Greek Wife Among Six Killed in Athens Blast
Rescue workers recovered six bodies from a three-storey building destroyed by an explosion in Plaka, the tourist quarter between the Acropolis and the Temple of Olympian Zeus. A British man and his Greek wife, both reportedly in their seventies, lived on the second floor and are believed to be among the dead, though authorities have not confirmed the identities. Four American tourists in a short-term let on the first floor also died. Athens’s mayor Haris Doukas said a large gas leak was the likely cause.
The Americans were missed before they were found: police realised they were unaccounted for when they failed to board a three o’clock flight from Athens airport. Teams worked through Friday night and Saturday with cameras, sensors and dogs, using excavators and thermal imaging, while rubble and shattered glass were thrown up to three blocks, damaging nearby homes, shops and vehicles. Investigators from the fire service’s crime unit are examining reports of a gas smell in a district dense with hotels and short-term rentals — which is the wider question here, since the building housed a holiday let and the regulation of such properties in historic centres is contested across southern Europe. The Foreign Office has been contacted. Watch the cause finding, and whether it points at the gas network or an individual installation.