A gas leak triggered an earthshaking explosion that flattened two apartment buildings on Wednesday, killing at least five people, injuring more than 70 and leaving at least nine unaccounted for. A fire followed the blast.
It was reported that residents had complained repeatedly in recent weeks about "unbearable" gas smells.
A National Transport Safety Board team member Robert Sumwalt said investigators would be looking at how Con Edison handled reports of gas smells and issues with the pipe, and would be constructing a timeline of events.
"We'll be looking at their call system to see how they handle complaints - phone calls reporting the odor of gas," Sumwalt remarked.
One of the side-by-side buildings had a piano store on the first floor, the other a storefront Spanish church.
The recovery was reportedly confronted with weather hardship. Temperatures were forecast to drop into the low 20s overnight, with rain. Some parts of the debris pile were inaccessible because of a sinkhole caused by a subsurface water main break, officials said.
The fiery blast, on Park Avenue at 116th Street, not far from the edge of Central Park, erupted about 9:30 a.m., around 15 minutes after a neighboring resident reported smelling gas, authorities said. The local utility, Con Edison, said it immediately sent workers to check out the report, but they didn't arrive until it was too late.
"The call came in at 9:13 a.m. from a resident who reported smelling gas inside the apartment, but the resident indicated the odor may have been coming from outside the building," Con Ed spokesman Sydney Alvarez told WCBS-TV. "Two Con Edison crews were dispatched at about 9:15 a.m. and arrived just after the explosion occurred."
The explosion shattered windows a block away, rained debris onto elevated commuter railroad tracks close by, cast a plume of smoke over the skyline and sent people running into the streets.
"It felt like an earthquake had rattled my whole building," said Waldemar Infante, a porter who was working in a basement nearby. "There were glass shards everywhere on the ground, and all the stores had their windows blown out."
Emanuel Rivera, 24, lives on the corner of 116th and Park Avenue, across the street from the blast site. He was at home sleeping with his wife Rehanna and their two children when it happened.
"All you heard was boom. The whole building shook. We looked outside and there was a bunch of smoke. Everything was in flames," he said.
Like several other neighbors, Rivera said they started smelling gas Tuesday night.
Hunter College identified one of the people killed in the blast as Griselde Camacho, a security officer who worked at the Silberman School of Social Work building. Hunter, in a statement on its website, said Camacho, 45, had worked for the college since 2008.
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| Griselde Camacho |
Another of the people who died was Carmen Tanco, 67, a dental hygienist.
At least three of the injured were children; one, a 15-year-old boy, was reported in critical condition with burns, broken bones and internal injuries. Most of the other victims' injuries were minor and included cuts and scrapes.
Fire officials said some people were unaccounted for but cautioned they may not have been in the buildings.
Pictures of smoke rising from the area as posted by some Twitters:
