Gas blast blamed for large NYC building fire

Associated Press

NEW YORK

An apparent gas explosion leveled an apartment building, largely destroyed another and launched rubble and shards of glass across streets in the heart of Manhattan’s trendy East Village on Thursday, injuring a dozen people. Smoke could be seen and smelled for miles.

Restaurant diners ran out of their shoes and bystanders helped one another to escape the midafternoon blast, which damaged four buildings as flames shot into the air, witnesses said. Passers-by were hit by debris and flying glass, and bloodied victims were aided as they sat on sidewalks and lay on the ground, they said.

“It was terrifying — absolutely terrifying,” said Bruce Finley, a visitor from San Antonio, Texas, who had just taken a photo of his food at a restaurant known for its french fries when he felt the explosion next door. “It just happened out of the blue. ... We were shaking even an hour, hour-and-a-half later.”

Mayor Bill de Blasio said preliminary evidence suggested a gas explosion amid plumbing and gas work inside the building that collapsed was to blame.

A plumber was doing work connected to a gas-service upgrade, and inspectors from utility Con Edison had been there to check on a planned meter installation an hour before the fire, company President Craig Ivey said. But the work failed the inspection, partly because a space for the new meters wasn’t big enough, and the inspectors said gas couldn’t be introduced to that part of the building, Con Ed said.

The state Department of Public Service was monitoring Con Ed’s response.

The fire happened a little over a year after a gas explosion in a building in East Harlem killed eight people and injured about 50. A National Transportation Safety Board report released last week said a leak reported just before the deadly blast may have come from a 3-year-old section of plastic pipe rather than a 127-year-old cast-iron segment that came under scrutiny in the immediate aftermath.

De Blasio noted no one had reported a gas leak before Thursday’s blast. Con Edison said it had surveyed the gas mains on the block Wednesday and found no leaks.

Bystander Blake Farber, who lives around the corner, said he’d been walking by the building and smelled gas seconds before the big blast.

Firefighters continued pouring water on the buildings for hours after the explosion, in an area of old tenement buildings that are home to students and longtime residents near New York University and Washington Square Park.

Firefighters said at least 12 people were hurt, four critically, some with burns to their airways. De Blasio said it didn’t appear that anyone was missing.

“We are praying that no other individuals are injured and that there are no fatalities,” he said.