Acropolis Blast

Athens lost a building on Friday. An explosion tore it down, killing at least two people and leaving four others missing, officials said.

The dead include an American man and woman, the BBC reported, citing AFP news agency and local officials. Two more American tourists remain missing. A Greek national and a British national who lived in the building are also unaccounted for, according to the BBC.

Saturday morning, rescuers pulled a woman's body from the rubble. A Greek fire official later said crews had recovered a man's body too, the BBC reported. Reuters, citing local police, said the two missing American tourists never showed up for their flight out of Athens.

Plaka took the hit. The BBC placed the explosion on a narrow street in the old quarter beneath the Acropolis, right between the hill and the Temple of Olympian Zeus. NBC News said the blast struck an old two-story building and injured at least two people who were pulled from an adjacent structure. Nine.com.au reported that residents said two people lived in one apartment there, while media accounts suggested three tourists may have been staying in a short-term rental unit in the same building.

Accounts of the building's size differ. Three stories, the BBC reported, brought down completely by the force of the blast. NBC News and CTV News described an old two-story building that collapsed.

A gas leak is the suspected cause, according to all three outlets.

Firefighters pulled two women from a neighboring building and rushed them to the hospital, police told CTV News. A passerby was hurt too, CTV News reported, citing local media and a resident. Parked cars crumpled under falling debris. NBC News reported damage to nearby buildings as well.

Resident Andreas Martzaklis told CTV News an elderly couple lived on the building's second floor. He didn't know if they'd gotten out. One apartment in the building operated as a short-term rental, he said. The rest were privately owned. Everyone rescued from the neighboring building was a tourist, according to Martzaklis.

"An incredible disaster." That's how Athens Mayor Haris Doukas described it, the BBC reported. Excavators, thermal cameras and a sniffer dog worked the rubble, according to the BBC and nine.com.au.

Search and rescue work continued for hours after the blast, the fire department said, according to CTV News. A nearby church damaged in the explosion will hold Sunday's service outdoors, its pastor said.

"Of course we went in. It was heartbreaking," said Giotis Kantartzis, pastor of the First Greek Evangelical Church in Athens, according to CTV News. "From the bottom to the top, there is no window that has not been broken."