Given the immensity of the blast, it's fortunate nobody was killed. Photo by Kai Joost.

TALLINN — An mysterious explosion early Wednesday morning in a three-story apartment building in the Kopli neighborhood on Tallinn’s north side injured eight people.

Tallinn’s emergency call center received a phone call at 2:20 a.m. about an explosion in a Süsta street apartment house right opposite from the Northern Border Guard’s maritime surveillance and intelligence center.

A portion of the apartment house’s third floor and attic was destroyed. Three men, three women and two children were taken to the hospital with small injuries. Four of them were saved under the wreckage. The rescue team evacuated a total of 32 people from the building.

A few windows of the Border Guard building’s gatehouse were broken due the explosion.

Construction workers try to stabilize the building so it will be safe enough for investigators to enter. Photo by Kai Joost.

The police have started a criminal investigation on what may have caused the blast. So far a gas explosion is one of the possibilities. The building was constructed in the 1940s.

“A gas explosion is one of the versions, as any traces of explosives have not been found at this moment, but the building is unstable and the investigators cannot access the building,” Maria-Elisa Tuulik, a prosecutor’s office spokeswoman told Baltic Reports.

Tuulik said that there are construction workers on site stabilizing the building but the works may take until tomorrow evening or even longer.

Tallinn Deputy Mayor Jüri Pihl said at a city hall press conference that the explosion was not a crime and said that the city will provide housing to those who need it.

“There are no clues which prove that it was a criminal explosion, rather an accident due gas explosion,” Pihl told the press. “Those people who need shelter, are provided with it.”