After the house collapsed in Hemer, Sauerland, as a result of an explosion, a dead woman was found under the rubble on Saturday morning.

Around 8.50 a.m., the rescue workers were able to locate a female person who could only be rescued lifeless from the rubble, the police said in the morning.

The identity of the woman is not yet certain.

The rescue workers continued to search in the morning.

The site was confiscated and secured by police forces.

Two people had previously been rescued from the rubble on Saturday night.

According to fire department spokesman Andreas Schulte, both were "in acute danger of death".

Rescue workers first provided medical care to a man and a woman on site and then took them to a clinic.

Two injured people had already been recovered on Friday evening.

One of the victims was hospitalized with serious injuries but was not life-threatening.

The man was lying high up on the rubble mountain, reported fire brigade spokesman Schulte.

The other person was reportedly only slightly injured.

Three of the eight residents of the house were probably not at home at the time of the collapse.

"No stone stands on top of another"

The police and fire brigade are assuming a gas explosion.

The exact cause was initially unclear.

The fire brigade had to be careful, but also quickly advance to the buried victims.

"We worked our way very carefully so that we could speak to them and touch them," said Schulte.

"Partly upside down," he added.

"It was tedious work."

The house is said to have been a six-party house with eight residents.

Three of them were probably not at home at the time of the collapse, police said.

The building had collapsed completely.

"There is no stone left standing," said fire brigade spokesman Schulte.

"I've seen quite a few buildings after a gas explosion, but I've never seen complete destruction on this scale," he later added.

Meanwhile, a structural engineer had to clarify whether and how much the neighboring houses had suffered.

A bus was ready in case of an evacuation.

The area around the scene of the accident was cordoned off.

Hemer is a town with 34,000 inhabitants in the Märkisches Kreis in Sauerland.

It is the eastern neighboring town of Iserlohn.