Rescue and recovery teams on Sunday found two bodies among the ruins of the buildings affected by the powerful explosion and fire last week in New York's East Village, authorities said.
So far, authorities have not definitively determined the identities of the bodies, which were found after more than three days of searching at the site of the blast and building collapse that left 22 people injured, several in critical condition.
Two men of Hispanic origin have been missing since the explosion, which occurred last Thursday when they they were presumably in a restaurant located on the ground floor of the building at 121 Second Ave.
Nicholas Figueroa, 23, and Moises Lucon, 26, have been missing since the blast, according to the New York Police Department, which passed out pictures of the two men all over the city in the hope of finding them alive somewhere.
Figueroa was in the Sushi Park restaurant along with a woman who survived, while Lucon, a Guatemalan immigrant who arrived in the Big Apple seven months ago, was working at the restaurant.
One of the bodies was found shortly after 1 p.m. on Sunday and the other about three hours later, officials involved in the investigation told The Daily News.
The accident occurred in a five-story building in the East Village neighborhood, apparently due to plumbing and gas work being done there.
The explosion - which is said to have been due to a gas leak - set off a massive blaze Thursday evening that initally collapsed two adjacent buildings, along with a third later on in the night.
New York Fire Department officials on Friday raised the number of victims from the 19 originally reported to 25, of whom four are in critical condition. Among the injured are four firefighters and a member of emergency management services. EFE
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