Fears grow for British pensioner, 78, last seen on balcony of Athens building destroyed by blast as rescuers pull bodies from rubble
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By ANTHEE CARASSAVA and SABRINA PENTY, FOREIGN NEWS REPORTER
Published: | Updated:
Fears are growing for a British pensioner who was last seen on the balcony of an Athens building that was destroyed by an explosion after a suspected gas leak.
The blast on Friday destroyed the two-storey building in Plaka, near some of Athens' most visited sites including the Acropolis and the Temple of Zeus.
The British man, 77, is among four people who remain unaccounted for.
He lived on the second floor with his wife, a 78-year-old woman born in Athens and of Albanian origin.
Neighbours said they saw the couple on their balcony shortly beforehand. Neither has been reached since the blast struck Friday morning, remaining unaccounted for as the search enters its second day.
The explosion hit the building on Lysikratous Street, steps from the tourist-flooded area girdling the Acropolis, at around 7:35 a.m. Friday. A fire that followed gutted the structure.
Fire officials believe a gas leak in the second-floor supply line was the cause, but a full investigation has been held off until the search for survivors is complete.
Rescuers pulled the body of a woman from the wreckage of the collapsed building early on Saturday.
Firefighters and members of the Hellenic Fire Service's Special Disaster Response Unit (EMAK) search the rubble of a building following an explosion on Lysikratous Street in Athens, Greece, 26 September 2026
Fears are growing for a British pensioner who was last seen on the balcony of the building. Pictured: Firefighters search through the rubble
A huge yellow digger claws through the ruins
A woman and a police officer help a woman from a nearby building
The woman was found unconscious just after 2am in the building's ground-floor apartment. She was pronounced dead soon after arriving at the state Elpis Hospital in the Greek capital.
She was part of a group of four guests — two American couples in their 30s and 40s — who had booked the ground-floor flat as a short-term rental.
A second body was pulled some hours later from the same ground-floor apartment.
The booking was made under the name of a 37-year-old man, Mr Ian. Rescuers recovered a handbag at the scene containing travel documents for a 40-year-old man, Mr Florin. All four had booked return flights to the US that they never boarded.
Around 30 firefighters and six vehicles remain at the scene, including two specialist units from Greece's disaster-response service, EMAK, and three search dogs trained to detect signs of life beneath the rubble. Live TV footage showed a huge yellow digger clawing through the ruins.
Haris Doukas, the mayor of Athens, said adjacent buildings and the ground beneath the blasted building were unstable, forcing crews to lift slabs of debris one at a time to avoid a further collapse.
Shortly after Friday's explosion, firefighters rescued two women from a neighbouring building on the same street. Both were tourists, taken to hospital by ambulance.
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