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Twelve emergency services workers were injured in an explosion at a block of flats in western Germany on Thursday, authorities said, without giving details of what caused the blast.

The explosion happened inside an apartment in the high-rise building in Ratingen, in North Rhine-Westphalia state, police said on Twitter.

Ten firefighters and two police officers were injured, some of them seriously, Herbert Reul, North Rhine-Westphalia's interior minister, told reporters.

+++ In dieser Sekunde gab es weitere, kleine Explosionen. Sie werden wohl durch den Zugriff des Spezialeinsatzkommandos verursacht.

— Andreas Wegener (@Andreas_Wegener)

A 57-year-old man was arrested in the flat where the explosion took place and a body was found, police said.

The emergency services had been called to the site on Thursday morning by a person in distress, according to the police.

The explosion happened after they arrived.

Police on Twitter referred to a "major operation" at the site.

The body was the suspect's mother, according to the Bild daily.

The flat had apparently been doused with petrol or another flammable substance, it said.

The arrested man was a suspected Covid denier, according to Der Spiegel magazine.

Reul said it was "incomprehensible" to him that police officers and firefighters went on a mission to help and "ended up risking their lives".