Fire in Rotterdam apartment building extinguished; Explosion had "enormous force"

The massive fire at an apartment complex on Schammenkamp in Rotterdam is out, the local security office confirmed. Firefighters are checking the structural integrity of the building before forensic investigators start looking into the explosion that caused the fire. That explosion had “enormous force,” a spokesperson for the security office told ANP. Three people are missing, and two got hurt.

“It wasn’t just an explosion like the ones that have been happening lately. This was much bigger,” the security office spokesperson told ANP. “A car that was standing on the street in front of the door was completely blown over. We know that 44 homes are so damaged that residents cannot return for the time being.”

Three people are still missing. The authorities could not reach them “despite many attempts,” the security office, Veiligheidsregio Rotterdam-Rijnmond, said. “We must take into account that they are under the rubble,” the spokesperson added to the news wire.

The police already used a drone to search the building for the three missing people, but that did not yield anything. They’ll physically enter the building and search once it is safe to do so. “First, a gas pipeline in the street must be secured. The network operator is now working on excavating and securing that pipeline,” the security office spokesperson said. The vast amount of extinguishing water used overnight made it impossible to excavate the street and get to the gas pipe earlier.

Two people got hurt, one of them seriously. “A local resident saw a man emerge from the flames. He helped him. He appears to have fallen through the floor above, which collapsed due to the impact,” Rijnmond reporter Jelle Gunneweg said after speaking to people at the scene.

“An injured person was immediately taken outside by neighbors and taken to the hospital with serious injuries,” a security office spokesperson told Rijnmond. “This person was in the home directly above the garage where the explosion occurred. A second person was able to continue after minor treatment by the ambulance.”

The building involved consists of a layer of businesses with two residential floors above. Across the street, about 15 meters away, is a four-story building of porch houses. That building also sustained significant damage from the pressure waves of the explosion.

The police will start investigating the cause of the explosion once it is safe to do so.