This image screenshot from a video posted on January 13, 2023, shows an explosion caused by a gas leak in the city of Bukan in Iran's West Azerbaijan province. (Photo courtesy of TASNIM news agency Twitter)
The blast hit a residential building in Bukan, a Kurdish-majority city in Iran's northwestern province of West Azerbaijan, on Thursday night, the official news agency IRNA reported.
"So far, the bodies of six people, including two children, two men, and two women, who were all members of the same family, have been taken out from under the rubble," the city's firefighting chief, Rasool Maroofi, was quoted as saying.
"Three people injured in this incident have been sent to medical centers for treatment," he said.
The main cause of the accident was still under investigation, Maroofi said, adding however that "the conditions and the method of destruction of the building resemble a gas explosion."
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