Man dies in house explosion near York
North Yorkshire Police have confirmed a 63 year old man has died in a house explosion in Haxby.
A man has died in an explosion which has destroyed a house in North Yorkshire.
Police say they believe a body discovered there is a 63 year-old man who lives at the address in Haxby.
The house has been reduced to waist-high rubble, and a number of other houses in the street have been damaged
"Both properties either side are quite badly damaged,''
said a North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue representative at the scene.
He described the affected property as a "pile of rubble at the moment''.
He added:
"It has all the signs of a gas explosion but we cannot confirm that until we get the investigation under way.''
Local residents have been telling Viking FM what they saw and heard:
The fire service will also be working with structural engineers to ascertain if the properties either side of the destroyed home are at risk of collapse themselves.
Emergency services are looking to isolate the gas supply. Currently the electricity board have switched off power within a 200-metre radius of the incident.
Officers will be working with Northern Gas Networks to investigate the possible cause of the incident.
Inspector Steve Breen of North Yorkshire Police has updated reporters, saying there is nothing suspicious about the circumstances of the incident at the moment, but that they will be doing a "full investigation to make sure that nothing is missed''.
He says, "We can reassure the public there's no ongoing danger, there's no ongoing threat, and the scene has been made safe"
He added that a number of other houses have been quite severely damaged and "we're going to have to ask residents to start boarding up, securing their premisies, in the next future"
A spokesman for North Yorkshire Police confirmed they were called to the scene at around 7.30am.
More than 30 firefighters were also deployed - working to extinguish several small blazes on arrival before conducting a search of the scene.
The urban search and rescue team are also in attendance as well as Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust, who checked over two further people at the scene, although they did not require hospital treatment.