MADRID: At least three people were killed on Wednesday when a huge explosion ripped through a building in Madrid, with officials confirming it was caused by a gas leak.

Images from the scene showed the walls on the top four or five storeys of the residential building in the heart of the La Latina neighbourhood had been blown out, with debris littered far and wide. Government representative Jose Manuel Franco told Spain’s public television that the blast occurred as a team of workmen were repairing the building’s boiler.

Images broadcast on Spanish television showed cars destroyed by the force of the explosion and smoke billowing from the top floor of the six-storey building which housed local priests.

“I was just leaving a nearby clinic when I heard a very big explosion, it was so big I thought it was a bomb,” Valentin Moreno, a 48-year-old salesman told AFP. “There were people running and a lot of smoke and when I got there, I saw the building’s facade had been completely destroyed.”

Hundreds of police and rescuers filled the streets around the building which the archdiocese said housed local priests who worked in the area.