New York, March 30 (IANS/EFE): Search and rescue teams found two bodies among the ruins of the buildings hit by a powerful explosion last week in New York's East Village neighbourhood.

Authorities have not definitively determined the identities of the bodies, found on Sunday after over three days of searching the explosion site that left 22 people injured and several in critical condition.

Nicholas Figueroa, 23, and Moises Lucon, 26, have been missing since the blast, according to the New York Police Department.

Figueroa was in the Sushi Park restaurant along with a woman who survived while Lucon, a Guatemalan immigrant, who arrived in the city seven months ago, was working at the restaurant.

The accident occurred in a five-storey building apparently due to plumbing and gas work that was on.

The explosion - said to have been due to a gas leak - set off a massive blaze on Thursday evening that initially collapsed two adjacent buildings, along with a third later in the night.