Explosion rips through Tokyo building; four injured

An explosion shook a building in downtown Tokyo on Monday, Japanese media reported, scattering debris across a busy intersection and sending smoke into the air, but the fire was quickly contained.

The Japanese Radio and Television Corporation (NHK), which broadcast video images of the flames through the windows of the shattered second floor of the building in the Shinbashi district of the Japanese capital, said that four people were injured, three of them seriously, but all were conscious.

It was not immediately clear what caused the explosion, but eyewitnesses said they smelled gas before the explosion.

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