German firefighters and police officers injured in explosion at flats

Police officers wearing gas masks and firefighters stand in front of a residential building in Ratingen (David Young/dpa via AP)

An explosion at a residential building in western Germany has injured at least a dozen members of the emergency services, a senior security official said.

Herbert Reul, the interior minister of North Rhine-Westphalia state, told regional lawmakers that 10 firefighters and two police officers were injured, some seriously, in the blast at a high-rise building in the town of Ratingen.