DUSHANBE, December 7, Asia-Plus -- At least six persons, including five children, were inured in a gas blast in one of housing estates in Dushanbe on Friday.   

Six persons, including 39-year-old woman and five children, injured in the gas blast were taken to the Dushanbe Republican Clinic Hospital # 3, Asia-Plus has learned at the admission department of the hospital.

In the meantime, witnesses say that rescuers took out two bodies from the residential building affected by the blast.  

Specialists from Tajik emergency services are still working on the site of the blast.  According to witnesses, they are seeking a person who was left under building’s wreckage.   

The explosion that occurred in apartment # 18 on the third floor of the residential building at 15 Mushfiqi Street at around 12:20 ruined part of the four-storey building.  The blast was so powerful that it blew out the windows of nearby buildings.  

According to the preliminary data, the blast was caused by gas leak.  Police cordoned off the area.   

It is to be noted that accidents involving gas happen quite often in Tajikistan, where ageing infrastructure needs renovation.  

Thus, six people, including a baby, were killed in two separate gas blasts in Tajikistan on November 8, 2007 alone.   

The first blast occurred in Dushanbe, killing two persons.  The other blast took place at a saw-mill in Sughd’s Spitamen district.  The Spitamen explosion killed four persons, including a baby. 

Tajik police authorities said that the blasts were caused by safety violations.