A fireman was killed and seven people injured in a blast and fire caused by a gas leak in a Rome residential building early Tuesday, rescue workers said.
Two of the injured, both firemen, were in a serious condition.
Police said the fireman was killed in an explosion as he and his colleagues tried to trace the gas leak.
The fire engine and several other vehicles in the street were damaged by the blast.
The area was sealed off to allow firefighters deal with a subsequent blaze.
Italy's Interior Minister Claudio Scajola and Rome's police chief Emilio Del Mese visited the scene.
The firefighters had been called to investigate a gas leak in the ground floor of the apartment building in Via Ventotene in the northeast of the city. Residents on the seventh floor had smelled gas. – Rome (AFP)
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