Rome, Dec 15 (IANS): Rescuers have pulled the remains of two people from the rubble of a residential building that collapsed following a methane gas explosion in Italy's Sicilian town of Ravanusa, bringing total fatalities to nine.

The gas explosion occurred on Saturday evening. Two people survived the accident, said the National Fire Department.

"Firefighters have found the lifeless body of the last missing person in Ravanusa," the National Fire Department tweeted on its official account around 6 p.m. local time on Tuesday.

This followed another tweet an hour earlier, in which the Fire Department said rescuers had "found the body of one of the last two missing people."

On Monday, firefighters tweeted that "this new day of searching starts with painful news: after 30 hours of uninterrupted work, rescuers located the lifeless bodies of four people."

Another three bodies were found on Sunday, when rescuers were able to extract the only two survivors of the explosion that occurred around dinner time on Saturday night, destroying several buildings, Xinhua news agency reported.

The sound of the explosion was heard in nearby towns, and prosecutors have started an investigation, according to Italian media.