Residents and workers who were in the area at the time of the incident are describing the sheer force of the explosion that struck a building today in Plaka, on Lysikratous Street. The violence of the blast is perhaps best illustrated by a striking detail: an old wooden shutter was hurled from the site with such force that it became tangled in the overhead cables along the street. As seen in the video obtained by OrangePress, the shutter — which likely belonged to the building that collapsed in the explosion — was launched several meters through the air before coming to rest, still hanging, from the cables above.
“Frames fell off the walls, coffee spilled everywhere – we thought it was a bomb”: shocked residents speak out after the Plaka explosion
Local residents are recounting the harrowing moments that followed the explosion, which occurred at around 7:30 a.m. “We heard something that sounded like a bomb going off. Coffee went flying, picture frames fell off the walls. The shockwave through the city was massive. Everyone was terrified — we all ran up to the rooftop. It was absolutely frightening,” one resident said.
As she described it, damage was recorded across the surrounding area, and she also discovered a crack in the wall of her own building.
“I watched the building collapse right in front of me”
Equally shocking are the accounts from workers who were inside the adjacent building at the moment of the explosion. “I was standing right in front of the building. I watched it collapse before my eyes. Every single window around it shattered,” said a woman who was at the scene.
She also described how an elderly woman had been inside a nearby building at the time, but managed to get up and move away from the windows before the blast hit. Police arrived shortly after, she said, and evacuated all workers from the area. “There was a smell of natural gas. We were terrified,” she added, capturing the overwhelming sense of panic that gripped the scene in the immediate aftermath of the explosion.
