NEW YORK — Rescue workers recovered two bodies Sunday in the wreckage of the explosion and fire that happened last week in the East Village, the police said.
Two men have been missing since the blast Thursday afternoon, which destroyed three buildings and injured 22 people. One of two victims was identified by family members as Nicholas Figueroa, 23. The second body was not yet identified.
The other missing man is Moises Ismael Locón Yac, 27.
The fire started in a first-floor restaurant, at 121 Second Ave., on Thursday. Figueroa had been on a lunch date at the restaurant, Sushi Park; Yac was a busboy there.
As the discovery of the first body became known around 1 p.m. Sunday, a brother of Figueroa cried out from the edge of the rubble. The man, Neal Figueroa, threw white roses into the intersection and thanked firefighters for working at the scene.
The second body was discovered around 4 p.m., the police said.
Officials said the fire was probably set off by a gas explosion. The explosion blew off the facade of the building before spreading to four neighboring ones. Three of the buildings — 119, 121, and 123 Second Ave. — were reduced to rubble.
Emergency workers had spent Sunday combing through piles of debris. As they have for days, cranes shifted the heaps of material from the explosion site onto the street, where firefighters scoured through it using rakes, hammers, and axes. Dump trucks carted away the sifted wreckage.
City officials said they suspected that leaking natural gas was the source of the explosion and fire. The Manhattan district attorney's office and the city's Department of Investigation are among the agencies looking into the explosion.
Along the surrounding streets Sunday, there were signs of both gratitude and exhaustion in the busy Manhattan neighborhood that has found itself transformed into an emergency recovery zone since Thursday.
In a room capped by arched wood and lighted by sunlight through stained glass, a dozen firefighters were greeted with a standing ovation Sunday morning at Middle Collegiate Church, a building of gray stone that stands just across Second Avenue at Seventh Street from where the buildings fell.
"The great Fire Department of New York and the great NYPD, how you rallied, how you saved our family, how you saved our community, how your quick work saved so many lives, we're honored to have you in this place," said the Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis said.
The parishioners who filled every pew in the church for the Palm Sunday service lifted their hands in the air. The firefighters waved in acknowledgment.
"We're going to stand, and we're all going to give you a blessing, but we'll clap first," Lewis said. "May God bless and keep you. May you be surrounded by angels."
Neighborhood restaurants near the explosion site were also showing signs of recovery Sunday as visitors began to return to the area. But the disaster site has also drawn gawkers, some of whom have been clustering at the barricades around the site taking selfies. Social media ignited with a backlash over the weekend, with some calling those shots ghoulish.