Sawt Falasteen - Dozens hurt in fuel station blast heard across Rome

The blast around 8:20am (0620 GMT) was preceded by a fire caused by a gas leak during refuelling, according to Rome Mayor Roberto Gualtieri, who provided the toll of injured.

Gualtieri visited the charred and smoking remains of the petrol and liquified natural gas (LNG) station and an adjacent sports centre in the Prenestino neighbourhood of eastern Rome.

The explosion sent a fireball and thick black smoke into the air, and was heard on the other side of Rome, shaking windows and causing some residents to worry that a bomb had gone off.

"The explosion was really powerful. I felt my skin burning," Michele Seco, a 23-year-old who worked at the now-destroyed sports centre, told AFP.

Before the explosion, emergency services and police were called to investigate the gas leak and had evacuated the immediate area, including a children's summer camp.

Police said 10 of their officers and one member of the fire service were injured, in addition to 16 civilians, two of whom were in a serious but not life-threatening condition.

Fabio Balzani, head of the sports centre, said if the fire had occurred just a bit later it could have been disastrous, with 60 children expected at the camp and around 120 people booked to use the pool.

"It would have been a massacre, a catastrophe," he told AFP.

- Gas explosion -

Andrea Quattrocchi, the local chief of the Carabinieri police force, said the timely intervention of his team was crucial.

"They extracted a person alive from a burning car," who was taken to hospital and is in a serious but stable condition, Quattrocchi told reporters.

Witnesses said an ambulance exploded in the fire.

Ennio Aquilino, regional director of the Lazio fire department, said the petrol station explosion was caused by a "BLEVE" -- a boiling liquid expanding vapour explosion -- of the liquified natural gas.

A BLEVE is caused by the rapid vaporisation of a pressurised liquid, normally when the vessel containing it is ruptured in some way.

"The effect is as if a bomb has gone off," Aquilino told reporters.

He said the first call to firefighters had been for a gas leak, then shortly afterwards came the explosion.

He said they did not have time to stop it, only to clear the area.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said she was following the situation, and offered her support for all those injured.

H.Jarrar--SF-PST