At least 16 people have been injured, seven of them seriously, after a large explosion in central Paris.

The blast took place in a building next to the Val de Grâce church in Rue Saint-Jacques in the fifth arrondissement of the French capital.

It housed a design school and the headquarters of the Catholic education system. It was engulfed by flames and much of it appears to have collapsed.

According to witnesses, there was a strong smell of gas before the blast.

Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said after arriving at the scene that initial checks of camera footage suggested the explosion occurred within the building, Le Parisien newspaper reported.

However, the authorities have said the cause of the blast has not yet been determined.

The area has been cordoned off by police and a major rescue effort is under way, amid fears that there could be more potential victims under the debris.

The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, is at the scene, while Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin has warned people to avoid the area.

The fire that broke out as a result of the explosion had been brought under control, Paris police chief Laurent Nunez told reporters.

The area where the explosion took place runs south from the Latin Quarter in Paris’s Left Bank area that is popular with tourists and known for its student population.

A student at Ecole des Mines on Boulevard Saint-Michel told Le Parisien: “I was in front of the Val de Grâce, I heard a huge boom and I saw a ball of fire 20 or 30m high. And the building collapsed with a huge noise. I smelled gas, but took several minutes to come to my senses.”

Another witness, Antoine Brouchot, told the BBC he was at home when he heard a “big explosion”.

“I stuck my head out of the window and looked towards Cochin [hospital], then I saw a big cloud of smoke and as I got closer, there was a building that had collapsed and for the moment, there is a fire.” (BBC)

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