One dead and five missing after explosion in Athens tourist district
A woman has died and five others are missing following an explosion in a residential building in Athens. Rescue teams are searching for potential victims under the rubble in the city's historic Plaka area.
An explosion and partial building collapse in the historic Plaka district of Athens, just below the Acropolis, has killed six people, according to Greek broadcaster ERTNews, citing rescue services. The blast struck a three-story residential building at around 7:30am on Friday and was followed by a fire; investigators are focusing on a suspected gas leak as the cause, and neighbors said they had smelled gas before the explosion.
The victims had not been officially identified as of the latest reports, but rescue services believe they include an elderly couple, both around 70, who lived on the building's second floor, and four US citizens — two men and two women — who were staying in a vacation rental on the first floor. One passerby was slightly injured by flying debris, and two women evacuated from a neighboring building were taken to hospital as a precaution.
Search and recovery work was slowed for hours by the risk of further collapse, both of remaining walls in the building and of neighboring structures. Athens Mayor Haris Doukas said the damage extended “across the whole street as well as the street behind the building,” calling it an “incredible catastrophe,” and said the city's urban planning authority had been mobilized to assess whether nearby buildings needed to be demolished. Mathaios Artavanis, who owns the ground-floor apartment in the building, told the newspaper Kathimerini that he had been trying unsuccessfully since the morning to reach the elderly couple who lived upstairs.
Plaka, where the explosion occurred, is a historic district popular with tourists, near Hadrian's Gate, one of Athens' major Roman-era landmarks. The nearby Acropolis drew 4.5 million visitors in 2025.
