Rescuers have ramped up the desperate search for a trainee nurse feared to be stuck underneath a pile of rubble after a townhouse was destroyed in an explosion.
The blast occurred on the second level of the property on Waikanda Crescent in Whalan, Sydney’s west, at around 1pm on Saturday.
Firefighters heard ‘taps’ and noises coming from underneath the rubble, which they believed was a sign the woman was still alive.
Five other people were treated at the scene by paramedics.
On Sunday, police announced that the search area is now a crime scene and officers have closed off the street.
The trainee nurse had been visiting her mother – who had ducked out momentarily, before returning to the site to find it completely destroyed.
‘She (the mother) was on her hands and knees screaming for her daughter,’ a neighbour said.
‘She wouldn’t leave, she sat here in the rain and cold all night saying she wasn’t going until her daughter was out’.
There has since been an increased police presence in the area as dozens of officers arrived at the scene around 7.30am.
Fire and Rescue NSW said a rescue operation remains ongoing in the area as firefighters, police, and ambulance crews remain at the scene.
Fire and Rescue NSW superintendent Ross Genders said rescuers have so far been unable to locate the woman, who was understood to have been on the second floor of the townhouse, when the blast struck.
‘We have a generalised area where we’re searching for them and that’s based on the design of the building,’ superintendent Genders told the Daily Telegraph.
‘So we know that it’s the backside of the building where the most rubble has collapsed.’
NSW Search and Rescue commissioner Jeremy Fewtrell said that despite the ‘total destruction’ of the property a person trapped during the damage would still be able to survive.
‘It is still within a window of survivability and hence the focus of [the] effort [is] to really explore the building as thoroughly as we can,’ he said.
Commissioner Fewtrell said no further ‘tapping’ noises were heard since the initial sounds were detected on Saturday afternoon.
Daily Mail contacted Fire and Rescue NSW and NSW Police for further comment.
Early indications suggest the explosion may be the result of a gas leak, however the actual cause is yet to be officially determined.
On Saturday, emergency services responded to a call about an explosion having ‘blown out’ a level of the unit.
Windows were smashed in the explosion and witnesses were heard screaming.
Paramedics treated five people after they suffered injuries following the explosion.
Two women were rescued from the collapsed structure’s rubble – a woman in her 60s and another woman in her 70s who uses a wheelchair.
The two women who were taken to hospital in St George and Hawkesbury but they have since been released.
Another 12 people from surrounding houses were evacuated, as houses and apartment buildings nearby were damaged.
Ambulance NSW told Daily Mail five people were taken to hospital after the blast – three transported to Mount Druitt Hospital and another three to Hawkesbury District District Health Service. Their current conditions are unknown.
Another person was treated at the scene.
Daily Mail contacted the Western Sydney Local Health District for further comment.
Emergency services braved the heavy rain and cold and worked overnight, in a bid to find the woman trapped underneath the debris.
The search and rescue effort was hampered late on Saturday afternoon due to the bad weather.
The property, has been reduced to a pile of rubble with the sound of the explosion heard several kilometres away.
Fire and Rescue, ambulances, HAZMAT, police, gas and energy personnel were able to enter the building on Saturday afternoon only after gas was cut to the area, which took several hours.
FRNSW teams trained in Urban Search and Rescue operations using concrete-cutters to clear the debris recovered a small dog from the units which is being cared for at the scene.
The house had ‘major damage’, with a neighbouring home also impacted, reported the Sydney Morning Herald.
Fire and Rescue NSW urged the public to stay away from the building.
‘The gas supply has been cut at the scene of an explosion…allowing Fire and Rescue NSW (FRNSW) teams to enter and search the area,’ they said.
‘There is no fire at present but the scene remains volatile and unstable.’
Whalan resident Kathleen Morris said the sound of the explosion was massive.
‘I heard a big bang and the whole house shook, everybody came out of their house, wondering what had happened,’ she said.
A resident told the Courier Mail that the explosion ‘shook my home four streets away’.
One person on social media said they heard the blast from their yard in Lethbridge Park which is 2.5km away while another said they heard it 9.4km away in St Clair.
Terry Fisher, who was working around the corner at time, told the publication that he rushed towards the unit block when he heard a loud bang.
‘I was working around the corner and heard a very loud explosion,’ he said. ‘It shook the house I was in, two streets away.’
‘It was definitely a shock to see half the house blown apart, I knew something big happened, as I had never felt an explosion that big.’