Rescuers found another body, a fifth, among the rubble of residential buildings that collapsed on Sunday in Marseille after the explosion, the mayor of the city said.

Earlier, local authorities said eight people were missing after an explosion destroyed two apartment buildings and partially collapsed a third. The causes of the explosion are still unknown.

Reaching out to the dead is “a terrible, difficult and dramatic task,” Housing Minister Olivier Klein told reporters in Marseille. He added that the government must support the victims, their families and those forced to leave their homes.

The rescue operation continues “with care and determination,” he stressed. A total of 40 buildings near the site of the disaster were evacuated.

The collapse caused a fire that hampered the investigation as it continued until this morning.

Five people were hospitalized with injuries, but their lives are not in danger.

In 2018, three other buildings deemed uninhabitable about one kilometer away from the site collapsed, killing eight people. Marseille’s prosecutor, however, noted that there were no structural problems in the buildings that collapsed on Sunday, and the possibility that the destruction was caused by a gas explosion is being investigated.

Source: APE/MEB