A gas explosion and subsequent fire in an apartment building in a small town near New York killed three people and injured five others Tuesday morning.

Three more people are unaccounted for and local police said they may be out for the day while rescue workers are still searching for victims in the three-story building in Bergenfield, New Jersey, less than 10 km north of New York.

Witnesses said they heard the blast around 9:30 a.m., which blew out windows and sparked a fire which can be seen from the Manhattan across the Hudson River several kilometers away.

Some of them said a woman cried out for help in the building at that time.

Police said most of the residents in the 24-unit building were out at the time of the explosion. Otherwise the number of casualties would have been greater.

Firefighters took hours to put out the blaze.

Preliminary investigations showed that a pit dug by construction workers who were trying to remove an underground oil tank collapsed and pinched a gas line about half a hour before the explosion.

Utility crews were sent to the scene after residents nearby reported the odor of gas.

Source: Xinhua