Two young siblings have been killed and their mother and an older woman are trapped after a two-storey building collapsed in southern Italy.
Firefighters said on their official Telegram channel that a gas explosion likely caused the collapse in the town of Saviano.
Rescuers recovered the bodies of a six-year-old boy and a four-year-old girl, saying that their father and a two-year-old brother had been found alive.
The father is in hospital in Naples in serious condition, local media said.
Mayor Vincenzo Simonelli was at the scene and told reporters that the building appeared “crumpled up on itself”, adding it was “a very serious situation”.
Firefighers’ spokesman Luca Cari said that rescuers had to be “very careful and move slowly, to avoid new collapses” as they searched for the two women.
Media reports said a gas leak could have caused the explosion that rocked the second floor of the building, which crumbled down, covering the lower floor with rubble.
