The three alleged perpetrators of the act of sabotage—which caused the explosion and collapse of a building in Plaka—have been arrested and will be brought before the competent judicial authority on Friday, in which six people lost their lives. The suspects are three men—two Greek nationals and one Albanian national—who, according to information from relevant sources, have criminal records (theft, drug offenses) and are alleged to have committed criminal acts, such as thefts, on the same day in other areas ranging from Omonia to Agios Ioannis (Neos Kosmos).
The Arson Crimes Division, after analyzing video footage from dozens of cameras, traced the route of the alleged perpetrators and determined that they entered the building in Plaka, on Lysikratous Street, approximately 5.5 hours before the explosion. According to the investigation’s findings, the three are alleged to have sabotaged the natural gas facility’s piping with the intent of stealing copper pipes. According to official sources, the three men allegedly entered the ground-floor stairwell in an attempt to cut the copper pipe connected to the meter located there.
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That specific location in the stairwell was an enclosed space with no windows and insufficient ventilation. As the investigation revealed after the pipe was cut, it appears that natural gas flowed into the stairwell and, due to its properties, rose to the upper levels of the building and accumulated on the second floor. According to the resident of the second floor—one of the six victims—when she got up that morning, it is believed that she flipped a switch, creating a spark that ignited the accumulated gas and caused the explosion. According to official sources, the gas from the leak had spread to other areas of the building, a development believed to have led to the building’s collapse and the explosion, resulting in the deaths of the elderly couple on the second floor and the two couples, tourists staying in a short-term rental on the first floor, to lose their lives.
Specifically, according to official sources, video footage collected by specialized DAEE personnel appears to show the explosion occurring almost simultaneously on the ground floor and the second floor.
Specialized DAEE agents retrieved the clock and reconstructed the scene, locating a photograph showing the clock as it appeared before the explosion. The section of the pipe that they determined had broken was then sent to the metallography laboratory of the Department of Metallurgy and Materials Technology at the National Technical University of Athens for technicalanalysis. There, it was determined that the break was caused by mechanical stress—specifically, tensile stress—which means that the perpetrators pulled on it forcefully to sever it. It is believed that the gas leak occurred at this point. Experts also estimate that the approximately five-and-a-half-hour period between the alleged perpetrators’ entry into the building and the explosion was sufficient for a large amount of gas to accumulate in the enclosed stairwelland the rest of the building.
