A powerful explosion ripped through a building in Plaka, the historic neighbourhood at the foot of the Acropolis, early on Friday morning, with five people reported missing, three of them tourists staying in a short-term rental.
The blast happened at around 7:30 a.m. local time on a small street normally packed with foreign visitors. According to Greece's public broadcaster ERT, investigators believe a gas leak caused the explosion, which brought the building down. Rescue teams searched through the rubble with a sniffer dog, thermal cameras and excavators, looking for two elderly residents — a couple of about 70 who lived on the top floor — and three American tourists believed to have been renting the first-floor apartment. The owner of a ground-floor unit told Kathimerini he had been unable to reach the couple since morning.
Two women were pulled from an adjacent building and hospitalised, and one more person was treated for minor injuries from flying debris. Neighbouring buildings and parked cars were damaged, and city planning crews were sent to assess whether nearby structures were still safe to enter, according to Mayor Haris Doukas.
Plaka is one of Athens' busiest tourist quarters, a maze of neoclassical streets lined with tavernas and souvenir shops running up towards the Acropolis and close to Hadrian's Arch, a landmark from the city's Roman era. The incident comes at the height of an extended Greek tourist season, with hundreds of visitors passing through the area daily — many of them staying in the kind of short-term holiday apartments now common across central Athens.
For travellers in Athens, the immediate advice is simple: expect some disruption around Plaka while rescue and structural checks continue, and follow local authority guidance if you have accommodation booked in the neighbourhood. The story is also a reminder to treat holiday rentals with a little scrutiny — checking that a listing has proper safety equipment, working smoke detectors and a clearly marked gas shut-off is worth the two minutes, especially in older buildings. Anyone concerned about friends or family staying near the site should contact their consulate or local police rather than travelling to the area itself.
