The British and Spanish authorities are searching for the next of kin of a 64-year-old British expatriate who died in a Costa del Sol hospital on Sunday, after suffering third-degree burns in a gas explosion in the Spanish resort of Torremolinos.

Shocked neighbours called the emergency services to the apartment of David Carney, who worked as a sound and lighting engineer at The Salon Variétés, an English-speaking theatre, at 3am when they heard what has been described as a “terrible boom”.

Investigators believe that a faulty domestic gas cylinder exploded when the victim lit a cigarette after arriving home following a night out with friends.

Medics rushed Mr Carney to Malaga’s Carlos Haya Hospital’s intensive care unit, where he was sedated and put on a ventilator before he passed away on Sunday lunchtime.

To date, neither the local British Consulate nor friends and colleagues have been able to trace the victim’s next of kin.