French rescue workers have found four bodies in the rubble of buildings in the southern city of Marseille that collapsed following an explosion.

Authorities had said earlier that they had identified eight people missing in the wake of Sunday’s explosion, which destroyed two residential buildings and caused a third to partially collapse.

The cause of the blast is still unknown.

The discovery of four bodies was “gruesome, difficult and dramatic”, said housing minister Olivier Klein, speaking on Monday to reporters in Marseille.

The rescue operations were continuing with “care and determination” and 40 buildings near the site had been evacuated, Klein said.

The collapse caused a fire that has complicated rescue efforts and which continued to burn on Monday morning.

Five people were taken to hospital on Sunday with serious but not life-threatening injuries.

In 2018, about one kilometre from Marseille, three buildings considered not fit for habitation collapsed, killing eight people.

The mayor of Marseille said a parallel could not be drawn, while the prosecutor said the buildings that collapsed on Sunday were not known to have any structural problems.

“Thoughts are with Marseille,” President Emmanuel Macron said in a Twitter message.