(ANSA) - Arezzo, September 20 - Two male employees are dead after a gas leak at the State archive in the Tuscan city of Arezzo, sources said on Thursday. The men are thought to have been poisoned by argon after entering a room that had been filled with gas to find out what had set off a fire alarm.

A third person was treated by paramedics. </s> Two people have died in a huge explosion at a gas station in Italy.

Among the victims was a firefighter, the fire brigade in the town of Fara in Sabina near Rome tweeted on Wednesday.

At least 17 people have been injured, according to news agency ANSA.

A tanker caught fire for unknown reasons. The force of the resulting explosion had catapulted a tanker and a vehicle from the fire brigade several meters, the newspaper La Repubblica reported.

The site of the explosion is located about 50 kilometres north-east of Rome in the province of Rieti.

"The situation is under control," Fara in Sabina Mayor Davide Basilicata wrote in the early evening on Facebook.

The site of the accident was still inaccessible and traffic was being redirected. </s> Ten people have been injured, including a child who is in critical condition, following an explosion caused by a gas leak in the centre of a small town near Rome.

The accident took place on Monday in Rocca di Papa, about 25 kilometres southeast of Rome and close to the pope's summer residence of Castel Gandolfo.

The child was seriously hurt but his life is not in danger, regional health commissioner Alessio D'Amato said in a statement, adding that he was admitted to hospital along with an adult, who has burn injuries.

Two more children were taken to hospital by their families while six adults were treated at the scene of the accident, the commissioner added.

The blast took place inside Rocca di Papa's town hall, partially destroying its facade and triggering a fire.

According to Italian media reports, mayor Emanuele Crestini was among the injured.

The children affected by the explosion were in a nursery school adjacent to the town hall, according to reports from the ANSA news agency.

Firefighters published a video on Twitter showing the street outside the town hall strewn with debris. No other victims were found among the rubble, they said.

In a statement, gas company Italgas blamed a third - unnamed - company for causing the explosion.

It said digging work outside the town hall had damaged underground gas pipes, provoking a leak. </s> Two people died and 15 others were injured Wednesday after a fuel tanker exploded at a gas station in central Italy, according to the country's firefighting service.

The incident happened at around 2.30 pm local time in the province of Rieti, Lazio region, when a fuel tanker resupplying a gas station exploded, provoking an enormous fireball. </s> FLORENCE, Italy (REUTERS) - An explosion at an industrial cistern in the Tuscan port of Livorno, one of Italy's biggest passenger and commercial harbours, killed two people on Wednesday (March 28), an official said.

The two men had been doing maintenance on the storage tank when the blast occurred, the port authority official said.

It had contained ethyl acetate, a combustible liquid, la Repubblica newspaper's website said.

Commercial and passenger services in Livorno were not likely to be affected, the port authority official said. </s> FLORENCE, Italy (Reuters) - An explosion at an industrial cistern in the Tuscan port of Livorno, one of Italy’s biggest passenger and commercial harbors, killed two people on Wednesday, an official said.

The two men had been doing maintenance on the storage tank when the blast occurred, the port authority official said.

Photographs posted online showed a large metal cistern partially crumpled and leaning sideways. It had contained ethyl acetate, a combustible liquid, la Repubblica newspaper’s web site said.

Commercial and passenger services in Livorno were not likely to be affected, the port authority official said. </s> MILAN — A tanker truck carrying a highly flammable gas exploded Monday after rear-ending a stopped truck on a crowded highway near the northern Italian city of Bologna. At least two people were killed, up to 70 injured and part of the raised expressway collapsed in the fireball.

Police said the accident and subsequent fire and explosion left some of the injured with severe burns. It also shut down a highway that is a key route between northern Italy and the Adriatic Coast and other points south, including Florence and Rome, the capital.

A police video showed the tanker failing to slow down quick enough and plowing into the rear of a truck stopped in traffic, with flames exploding on impact. Another truck appeared to hit the tanker from behind. After an unspecified time lapse, during which the highway was cleared of most other vehicles, the truck erupted in a second, enormous explosion that spanned eight lanes of the highway and beyond.

Flames shot up into the air, followed by a thick black cloud of smoke. Aerial photos showed a gaping hole left in the raised highway. TV images hours after the flames were doused showed the burned-out skeletons of hulking tractor trailers.

Italian prosecutors said the tanker was filled with liquefied petroleum gas, otherwise known as propane, used as a fuel in heaters, cooking equipment and vehicles.

Firefighters said the extreme heat of the flames caused the raised roadway to collapse, sending a heat explosion that incinerated dozens of automobiles on new car lots nearby.

In a separate vehicle accident in the southern Italian region of Puglia, 12 farm workers were killed Monday when the van they were traveling in collided with a truck and overturned, ANSA reported.

The accident was similar to one on Saturday, when a truck laden with tomatoes crashed into a van and four migrants died.

Colleen Barry is an Associated Press writer. </s> A fire sparked while a tank truck was unloading gas at a petrol station located at the 39th kilometre on the busy Via Salaria, near Borgo Quinzio, in the province of Rieti, some 80 kilometres from Rome. In less than half an hour, at approximately 1pm GMT, the vehicle exploded, injurying passersby and members of the fire brigades who were trying to put down the blaze. One of the two victims was a 50-year-old fireman, Stefano Colasanti, who was not a member of the brigades called to assist but selflessly stopped to help his colleagues evacuate the area while he was passing through.

Upon confirming his death, the Italian fire service spoke of the "endless pain" they were suffering from the loss. The other casualty is a man who was hit by the blast after he stopped to check what was going on. The 17 injured, including some of the emergency responders, were taken to five different hospitals by helicopter to avoid the traffic that started piling up as soon as part of the SS4 Via Salaria, a stretch of the Italian state highway linking Rome to the Adriatic sea, was closed and cordoned by police. Davide Basilicata, mayor of the surrounding municipality of Fara in Sabina, said: "We are monitoring the situation, we have diverted the traffic and no one is allowed to go near the area of the blast.

"The situation is serious, firefighters keeps working at the scene. "The whole area has been declared a red zone and remains off limits for now." Among the injured, three are deemed seriusly harmed. And all of them have suffered blast shocks and burns.

Antonio Mannoni, police commissioner of Rieti, explained what happened to Italian news agency Ansa, saying: "I can confirm the outcome of the tragedy is heavy. "The blast sparked from a tanker which was unloading gas at the petrol station. "A first blaze had started earlier, and while firefighters were tackling it a second violent explosion took place. "At the moment firefighters are cooling down the tanker to make sure it will no longer be a threat."

Blood-chilling pictures show firefighters and police officers still working inside the cordoned area. The explosion was "like an earthquake", according to witnesses who spoke to local media. Residents living nearby described to Italian daily Repubblica the blast, saying: "An enormous roar, never heard something like that, it sounded like an earthquake." Italy's deputy prime ministers Luigi Di Maio and Matteo Salvini both offered their condolensces to the relatives of those who died. </s> MOSCOW: Russian rescuers were on Monday searching for people still trapped under the rubble of a city apartment block that partly collapsed in a suspected gas blast, killing at least three, RIA said.

Russia's emergencies ministry told the news agency that four people had been recovered alive from the nine-storey building in Magnitogorsk, an industrial city some 1,700 km (1,050 miles) east of Moscow in the southern Urals.

News agency TASS said 79 people were unaccounted for, quoting Chelyabinsk regional Deputy Governor Oleg Klimov.

The emergencies ministry said the blast, probably caused by a gas leak, damaged 48 apartments.

RIA said it ripped through the building at around 0600 a.m. (0100 GMT) when many residents were asleep. Monday is a public holiday in Russia.

There have been several similar incidents in Russia in recent years due to ageing infrastructure and poor safety regulations surrounding gas usage.

In 2015, at least five people were killed when a gas explosion damaged an apartment building in the southern Russian city of Volgograd.
A gas leak at the state archive in the city of Arezzo, Italy, kills two employees and injures one other.