You're reading: 1 killed, 6 injured in residential building explosion in Kyiv

A huge blast ripped through a three-storey apartment building on Holosyivsky Avenue in southwestern Kyiv on July 8, leaving most of the building in ruins.

Witnesses said the blast wave from the explosion was so strong that it broke the windows on some floors of the nearby Hotel Mir.

State Emergency Service officers, along with National Police officers, are working on the blast scene, evacuating people and removing debris.

According to to Svitlana Vodolaga, the spokesperson for the Kyiv branch of the State Emergencies Service, one woman died in the blast.

Investigators said six people were known so far to have been injured by the explosion, and that they had been taken to hospital.

“The preliminary finding is that it was a natural gas explosion,” Oksana Blyshchyk, the National Police of Kyiv’s spokesperson, wrote on Facebook on July 8.

“The blast destroyed two floors of the residential building,” she wrote.

 

A video shows the State Emergency Service officers, along with National Police officers, working on the blast scene, evacuating people and removing debris. (Courtesy from Oksana Blyshchyk Facebook)