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Three law enforcement officials have been killed in a farmhouse explosion in Italy as they arrived to evict the occupants.
A minimum of 15 others have been injured after the constructing in Castel d’Azzano, near Verona, was full of gas and exploded as officers forced their way in.
They’d arrived to evict three siblings, two men and a girl all of their 60s, who had refused to go away and ‘threatened to blow themselves up’.
Verona’s chief prosecutor Raffaele Tito said: ‘It’s an incredible tragedy, absurd behaviour. I’m incredibly saddened.
‘Carabinieri and police tried to operate with maximum security and all of the vital equipment.
‘However the consequence was unexpected and really painful.’
Two brothers were arrested with considered one of them hospitalised.
One other fled across nearby fields and has still not been found.
Images show the constructing still smouldering as firefighters work to rescue people trapped beneath the rubble.
One said: ‘Certainly one of the bodies was pulled from the rubble only half an hour ago.’
The siblings had barricaded themselves contained in the home, in keeping with Italian news agency ANSA.
Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said the incident was a ‘terrible toll’, adding: ‘When forced entry was made to this apartment, witnesses report that the smell of gas was immediately visible and the explosion occurred.’
The three officers were killed have been hailed as heroes by the Carabinieri Union.
Secretary Antonio Serpi: ‘Respected and beloved by their colleagues, they honoured the uniform with humility, dedication, and altruism, even to the purpose of ultimate sacrifice.
‘The pain of the lack of our three colleagues is profound and affects all the Carabinieri family.
‘We express our deepest sympathies, with emotion and respect, to the families of the deceased soldiers, to their injured colleagues, and to all those that are working amid the rubble with their customary courage and spirit of service during these hours.’
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