for after the store burst into flames in Sydney's inner west about 4am

Police have not formally identified the body but it is believed it could be that of missing man Chris Noble

The body was transported to the Glebe morgue and was removed more than six hours after its discovery


The frantic search for three missing people in the wreckage of a Sydney convenience store - which exploded in flames in the early hours of Thursday morning - came to a climatic point on the same night when a body was removed from the rubble.

Rescue crews finally retrieved a body of a man more than six hours after its discovery at the site of the explosion in the Sydney's inner west.



Police have not formally identified the body but it is believed it could be missing man Chris Noble.

At 10.50pm on Thursday, emergency service workers at Darling Street in Rozelle rolled a body from the site on a stretcher.

Crews have been working throughout the night to continue the search for the two other people who are still missing, including 12-month-old baby boy Jude. He and his 31-year-old mother Bianka O'Brien still have not been found.



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Fire and rescue personnel finally manage to remove the unidentified body from the rubble of a Sydney convenience store which exploded in flames on Thursday morning

The body was found at 4:30pm but was unable to be moved due to the site being dangerously unstable and would put rescue crews in danger



It has been a painstaking task for rescue crews who have battled not just the wet and cold conditions, but the threat of the surrounding brick walls around the site collapsing.

Darling Street remains closed from Beattie Street to Victoria Road and shop owners have told Daily Mail Australia they will be contacted by police when they are able to re-enter their businesses.

But it is expected it will be days before this will happen.

Rescue crews were left unable to carry out their work for some time after the discovery of the body at 4:30pm due to the site being dangerously unstable.

All search efforts were temporarily halted and all crews pulled out after laser beams, which have been pointed at an unstable wall on the site, detected movement.

Police finally retrieved the body more than six hours after its discovery. They have not formally identified the body but it is believed it could be missing man Chris Noble

Police have confirmed a man's body was found amongst the rubble at 4:30pm but family and friends were told of the find before media were alerted three hours later



Superintendent Ian Krimmer told reporters no cries for help had been heard coming from the rubble in which police have placed listening equipment and cameras within cavities where someone could have survived

Rubble was being moved from the sit, literally 'brick-by-brick' according to police, so as not to hamper anyone who may still be surviving underneath

'We are trying to secure that wall to make it safer, then we can move in and retrieve the person that we have located,' NSW Fire and Rescue Superintendent Ian Krimmer said.

He confirmed that no cries for help or any other sound had been heard coming from the rubble in which they have placed listening equipment and cameras within cavities where someone could have survived.

'We've attacked this rubble pile from both sides - from the front and the back,' he told reporters.

'Earlier you may have seen our hydraulic platform which was reaching across the pile and our firefighters were placed above the rubble pile trying to remove debris as well.'

NSW Police spokesman Clive Ainley said rescue crews were literally removing rubble from the site 'brick-by-brick' so as not to hamper anyone who could still be alive underneath.

Throughout the night, the sound of an alarm could be heard signalling movement of the unstable wall on the site and rescue crews were seen scrambling away to safety as they continued their search for the two other people missing.

'We are optimistic we will find survivors,' Superintendent Ainley said.

The cause of the blaze is still unknown.



Police have declared the incident suspicious and NSW Inspector Gary Coffey of Leichhardt police urged any members of the public who saw a silver sedan near the scene on Thursday morning to contact police.

'At this stage it's an arson - it's too early to speculate whether it is a homicide. It's a suspicious fire,' Supt Ainley said.

'The investigation...takes secondary place after the rescue.'

Ms O'Brien's husband John O'Brien (pictured with his son), who works at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Randwick, is understood to have left for work just before the tragedy occurred

Police searched nearby bushed for blood earlier in the day. The fire is currently being treated suspiciously by investigators



A dramatic aerial image from the obliterated convenience store in Sydney's inner west - which used to be a two-storey building



The convenience store went up in flames about 4am on Thursday morning and an explosion was heard by residents who lived about 1km away from the scene



Firefighters rush to deal with the blaze in the early hours of Thursday morning and remained at the scene - along with the police - for all of Thursday and are expected to remain there on Friday



Police established a crime scene down one side of Darling Street earlier in the day, close to where Daily Mail Australia spotted officers searching for blood earlier on the road.

Recent social media posts made by Bianka O'Brien shows a mother who doted on her son. On Facebook, she described Jude as a 'cheeky little monkey' who was 'growing up so fast'.

Her husband, John O'Brien, who works at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Randwick, is understood to have left for work just before the tragedy occurred.

One neighbour said Ms O'Brien's brother, James, owns the mobile phone store next door to the blown-up convenience store and is the 'nicest guy on the street'.

A local business owner of a food outlet - just down the road from the explosion site - told Daily Mail Australia that she had seen Ms O’Brien and baby Jude on Monday morning, saying the happy child had smiled up at her.

'It's sad. The mother and boy were in here the other day buying a drink. We don’t know what happened, nobody knows what happened,' she said.

Huge blaze: Fire bursts out of the store on Darling Street at Rozelle, which is one of the major streets in the inner west suburb



Sniffer dogs comb the rubble for any signs of life earlier on Thursday as crews continued their search for the missing people



An SES worker and a sniffer dog comb the wreckage for any signs of life. A man's body was eventually recovered later in the day



Disaster: A woman is pictured in distress following the blaze on Thursday morning and is seen being comforted by a man



Thursday morning's huge blast shattered windows and triggered mass evacuations, with resident Deborah Jenkins-Sweeney telling Daily Mail Australia she 'thought it was an earthquake'.

Following the explosion, firefighters rescued a man from the building who became trapped under a commercial refrigerator.



His hand was spotted sticking out from underneath the rubble.

Paramedics whisked the man to Royal Prince Alfred Hospital where he was treated with serious injuries, including a head injury.

Two men who also lived in the apartments above the shop also suffered injuries from shattering glass following the huge blast. The men jumped to safety from the first floor of the building.

Dogs are being used to try and locate the missing people who lived in adjacent units.

Firefighters are concerned about the stability of the surrounding buildings and are attempting to shore up the walls with timber props.



Rubble: Two people remain unaccounted for. At 9:30am AEST, the building site was too unstable for search and rescue teams to comb through the rubble

Firefighters battled the blaze for more than half an hour before it was contained and a 500m stretch of the road was closed off from cars



The explosion engulfed the entire store and trapped an employee inside who was later found when a hand was seen sticking out from under the rubble



Ambulance: A store employee was taken to hospital with serious injuries on Thursday morning

The fire took place on the corner of Darling and Nelson Streets in the inner-west Sydney suburb of Rozelle

About 60 firefighters battled the fire for more than half an hour until it was brought under control.

Rozelle resident Leon Alexiou said Rozelle resembled a war zone.



'It was just chaos, there was smoke everywhere things sparking, things flying, paper everywhere,' he said.

'It was crazy like the Middle East - that's what it looked like.'

Resident Deborah Jenkins-Sweeney said her house 'moved sideways' during the blast.



'Being from [New Zealand], I thought it was an earthquake. Very scary,' she said.



One witness told ABC Radio Darling Street was an 'absolute bomb scene'.

'It was crazy - like the Middle East, that's what it looked like,' one resident said

Remnants: The convenience store as seen on Thursday morning

Disaster scenes: Fire crews rushed to the site of the convenience store about 4am on Thursday morning

About 50 firefighters remain on the scene in Rozelle who are working throughout the night to continue the search for the two other missing people



Former Darling Street resident Caitlin Welsh said the flats above the stores on Darling St were ancient.

'This Rozelle explosion is just awful,' she wrote on Twitter.



'I used to live in a flat above a shop on Darling - those buildings are ancient and falling to bits.

'Our only exit was down steep wooden back stairs; if there had been a fire in the pizza shop below, we'd have been trapped in minutes.'

Anthony Carroll, who lives above the store, told the Sydney Morning Herald he was woken up by the explosion and found smoke seeping under the door of his room.

'If it had exploded upwards and not outwards I don't think I would be talking to you,' he said.



'One of the other guys who lives upstairs got out, he was covered in blood.

'The store owner was downstairs and the roof collapsed on him, and the other bloke upstairs was trapped but he eventually managed to get out,' he said.

Mr Carroll escaped with the clothes on his back and said he was told he wouldn't be able to return to his home for at least a day.

He said he doubted anything was left anyway.

Writer Caitlin Welsh wrote on Twitter that 'many of the flats above shops in that strip are private rentals, ancient buildings'. She said the explosion was awful

The blaze left the store gutted and shattered glass in apartments above, with residents in the local community left shocked



The cause of the huge explosion is yet to be determined, with police looking into a witness' statement that said they saw a man driving away from the scene



Residents say they were woken early in the morning by the sound of the blast, one resident compared it to a Middle East war zone



The road closure is likely to cause traffic chaos in Sydney as Victoria Road - a major thoroughfare to Sydney's CBD - is only a few blocks away



Emergency services responded to calls just before sunrise and found the fire had lit up the area

Residents of the neighbouring suburbs of Balmain and Drummoyne heard the explosion.

Photographs show the store completely engulfed by fire and black smoke billowing from the burning building.

Darling Street remained closed throughout Thursday and is expected to be closed on Friday as well.

The street is just a few blocks from Victoria Road - a main thoroughfare into Sydney's CBD.

Police said one witness told them a man was seen driving away from the scene at the time of the blast and this would be part of their enquiries.

Local businesses in the area said they are 'shocked and rocked' by Thursday morning's tragedy.

'It was total carnage. People jumping out of buildings, screaming for their lives,' one man said.

He added the community was very tight-knit and many people are extremely upset.