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Three police officers were killed and more than a dozen others were hurt in what appears to be deliberate blast caused by gas at a rural property in northern Italy.

Sequence of Events

The explosion occurred as police and firefighters approached the house close to the city of Verona to enforce an removal notice for two brothers and a sister in their late 50s and mid-60s.

All three victims who died served in the Carabinieri force.

Legal Proceedings

A man and a woman were taken into custody at the scene and one more individual who ran away after the blast was found shortly later. The trio have been transported to hospital.

The explosion could be audible as far as 3 miles distant and photographs from the area revealed the building reduced to a heap of debris.

“This moment calls for sorrow,” said the Minister of the Interior Minister Piantedosi, who noted that previous tries had been made to remove the three family members in the past.

Financial Context

The leader of the region of Veneto, the regional head, explained the farmhouse was under an court order due to unpaid amounts accumulated by the property owners.

Negotiators had been dispatched to speak to the siblings who had locked themselves into the property. When the police came just after 03:00 (01:00 GMT), investigators suspect one of the siblings set off the explosion.

“When we entered the property, we faced an utterly insane act,” regional commander Claudio Papagno informed the media.

A propane tank had been set off, and the blast directly hit our members,” he explained.

Incendiary devices were also discovered at the residence, the minister said.

Casualties and Damage

Injured individuals by the blast consisted of eleven more officers of the military police as well as three members of Italy's state police and a fire services member.

Based on information from the local prosecutor, the farmhouse was in a dilapidated shape and had lacked electrical service.

He was convinced the blast had occurred on a story above the entrance and stated to reporters it was a “premeditated and voluntary homicide”. Moments before the blast, he revealed officers had “noticed a hissing sound, presumably the gas canisters being opened”.

Local Response

“All of us understood the scenario was critical,” nearby inhabitants told reporters, adding that the trio had previously threatened to “cause an explosion” rather than vacate the property.

“The incident exacted a ‘dreadful, extremely sad and dramatic price’.”

The Defense Minister Guido Crosetto stood alongside other government officials in commemorating the three officers who had been killed in the line of duty.