Smoke billows from the roof of a residential house that caught fire after a large explosion in Yverdon-les-Bains, western Switzerland, where "Several bodies" have been found according to the police of the canton of Vaud. (Photo by Olivier ALLENSPACH / FLASHPRESS/ALLENSPACH / AFP)
Geneva: Several bodies have been found after a large explosion and fire ripped through a residential home in western Switzerland Thursday, police said.
Emergency services were alerted to a blast in the house in the lakeside town of Yverdon-les-Bains in the Swiss canton of Vaud at 6:40 am (0540 GMT), police said.
"Several bodies have been found in the house," Vaud police spokesman Alexandre Bisenz told AFP.
Images in the Swiss press showed fire fighters hosing down the still-smoking, burned-out shell of a single-family home, where a family of five had reportedly been living.
"An investigation has been launched," Bisenz said, adding that the cause of the fire remained unclear, as did whether the explosion had happened before or after the blaze broke out.
