MADRID, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- A fourth person has died as a result of the gas explosion that rocked the center of Madrid Wednesday afternoon, regional emergency services confirmed Thursday.
The fourth victim has been named as Ruben Perez Ayala. A 36-year-old priest, who was badly injured in the explosion, which happened at around 15:00 local time (1400 GMT) in a building belonging to Parish of the Virgin de la Paloma in the central Calle Toledo.
Perez Ayala had been close to a gas technician named David Santos Munoz, who had been inspecting one of the boilers in the building at the time of the explosion after neighbors reported smelling gas.
He was taken to the La Paz hospital, but died in the early hours on Thursday, while Santos Munoz lost his life in the initial blast, along with an 85-year-old woman and a 45-year-old man who was working on the other side of the road when the blast devastated the top three floors of the building.
On Thursday morning, firefighters and technicians from the Madrid City Council resumed clearing the damaged building and removing rubble from a wide cordoned-off area to allow for a full inspection of the damage.
Specialists from the gas company are also involved. A decision has to be made on whether to demolish the building or to rebuild it, depending on the amount of structural damage the explosion caused.
The municipal police force is also working to remove the cars affected by the falling rubble, while neighbors who were evacuated from the surrounding buildings also need to be rehoused until engineers evaluate whether these buildings, which are around 130 years old, suffered structural damage in the blast. Enditem