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One person died and at least 17 were injured when a five-story residential
building in Manhattan's East Harlem neighborhood exploded and was leveled
Wednesday morning, a law-enforcement official said.
Witnesses said they heard a loud boom near East 116th St. and Park Avenue.
The fire department received the initial call at 9:31 a.m. and were on the
scene at 1644 Park Avenue two minutes later.
It is a five-alarm fire—44 units and 200 Fire Department of New York
personnel are on the scene, officials said.
Reinaldo Ray Rosario, 48, said his girlfriend's brother, wife and two
children were in the building and are unaccounted for.
Mr Rosario lives half a block away from the scene with his girlfriend and
said they ran downstairs upon hearing an explosion and strong burning smell.
"We're worried about family," he said.
Worldstream Video
Smoke Rises Over Site of Explosion
Victim Pulled From Rubble of Building
The blast is being investigated as a gas explosion, the official said.
Consolidated Edison Inc. received a report of a gas odor around 9:15 a.m.
Wednesday from a resident of 1652 Park Ave., said Sidney Alvarez, a
spokesman for the utility. Two ConEd crews arrived shortly after the
explosion, and gas and electricity service have been shut off in the area as
crews look for gas leaks.
Mayor Bill de Blasio arrived at the scene shortly after 11 a.m.
Robert Paulin, 56, who works in data processing at nearby Columbia
University, said his entire fifth floor apartment five blocks away shook
when the explosion happened.
"I just came running over and saw nothing was left," he said.
Aisha Watts said she was in her bathroom at 1652 Park Ave when she heard an
explosion and felt the building shake. She said it felt like the trembling
went on for five or six minutes.
"It felt like an earthquake. I thought I was going to die," she tearfully
said.
She said she saw windows crash out of their frames and the walls crumble as
she left her bathroom where she had been getting ready for work. She
struggled to get out of the room, she said, because the door was jammed. A
neighbor heard her cries for help and helped her.
Some witnesses thought it was a terrorist attack.
"To be honest, I thought it was another 9/11," said Argennys Rosario, 20, of
East Harlem. Mr. Rosario was leaving a store across the street when "
everything shook" and the glass exploded from the door he was standing near.
"The smoke just came rushing out and you could tell the building had
collapsed," Mr. Rosario said.
Metro-North service has been suspended as Metropolitan Transportation
Authority workers search for possible debris on elevated railroad tracks
near where authorities reported a building explosion in Manhattan, MTA
spokesman Aaron Donovan said.
The possible explosion was reported near Park Avenue and E. 116th St. about
9:37 a.m., Mr. Donovan said. No passenger injuries have been reported.
Metro-North trains are not leaving Grand Central Terminal, and southbound
trains are being brought to the nearest station, he said.
The impact could be felt several blocks away, said Molly Mills, a freelance
writer in Harlem who lives on Frederick Douglass and 116th.
"It felt like a subway rumble," Ms. Mills said. "I just heard a loud boom.
It sounded like a construction accident had happened or something."
More than an hour later, people were still being pulled from the rubble and
were being loaded into ambulances.
Sade Dundee, a student on her way to visit her father at a nearby nursing
home, says she sawdebris fall on passersby. "People said to run and get out
of the way," she said.
—Michael Hickins, Yoni Bashan, Mara Gay, Joe Jackson and Derek Kravitz
contributed to this article. |
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