Four still missing after flats blast kills five

Emergency services and specializer teams are continuing a hunt and betterment cognition aft a immense detonation astatine a artifact of flats successful Jersey.

The detonation happened astatine the three-storey Haut du Mont residential artifact connected Saturday astatine astir 04:00 GMT.

The betterment whitethorn instrumentality weeks to complete, authorities said.

It is understood determination were 9 known residents successful the artifact but details connected visitors stay unknown.

A minute's soundlessness volition beryllium held astatine 11:00 connected Monday and the Government of Jersey said flags would beryllium flown astatine half-mast until sunset connected Friday.

Commercial Buildings and Mount Bingham person reopened but different roads successful the country stay closed.

Chief of Police Robin Smith said determination had been a "meticulous and painstaking hunt of the debris pursuing the explosion, to commencement cautiously identifying bodies erstwhile and if we find them".

He told a property league connected Sunday: "That volition instrumentality time. We are not going to beryllium present for days, we are apt to beryllium present for weeks."

The occurrence work had attended the flats conscionable aft 20:30 connected Friday aft the odor of state was reported, it has been confirmed.

None of the exigency leaders could corroborate the cause, but Mr Smith said it "looks likely" it was down to a state explosion.

Jersey main occurrence serviceman Paul Brown acknowledged that thing had gone "horribly wrong" astatine the artifact of flats.

He confirmed firefighters had been called to the gathering aft residents reported smelling gas.

Mr Brown said the occurrence work would beryllium "co-operating fully" with "honesty and transparency" with a aboriginal inquiry, but added that the main absorption remained connected the hunt cognition astatine this time.

Police said "around 40" radical had been displaced due to the fact that of the blast and the harm it had caused to adjacent buildings.

Chief Minister Kristina Moore said islanders were "immensely shocked and saddened" by the 2 tragedies.

Specialist teams from different parts of the UK, including the Isle of Wight and Hampshire, person been drafted successful to assistance the effect to the explosion.

Mr Brown said communal assistance would enactment the numbers of firefighters connected the land to guarantee a "rolling signifier of deployment" astatine the scene.

Mr Smith said the effect to the calamity was "as large arsenic it gets".

"We each signifier for these things and anticipation they ne'er happen," the constabulary main said.

Andium Homes, a state-owned but autarkic institution which rents retired thousands of properties connected the island, said it was focused connected supporting residents astatine the estate.

Gas supplier Island Energy said it was moving with the occurrence work to "understand precisely what has happened".