Residents are feared trapped in a Manhattan apartment building that exploded this morning in the East Harlem neighborhood.
A gas leak is suspected in causing the building on the corner of 116th Street and Park Avenue to burst into flames, as ConEdison workers are at the scene and gas lines have been cut off in the surrounding buildings.
Those in the area reported hearing a loud boom and smoke in the area a little after 9am, and some were even evacuated.
Mount Sinai and Harlem hospitals have received 11 injured in the explosion so far, with one patient being treated for serious head trauma. At least one man has been rescued from the building so far, being led away from the scene on a stretcher.
'People who were living in the building, they flew out when the blast hit,' said Denise Ortiz, who was nearby when she heard the explosion. 'It knocked everyone into the debris.'
She added that she initially worried the Metro North had been targeted in an attack.
'It sounded like a bomb went off,' she told NBC 4. 'Everyone started screaming, "They blew up the Metro North!" But when we ran over there , we saw a building had collapsed and it was not the Metro North.'
A woman who lives in a building just a block away says she was sleeping when she heard the explosion and the blast rocked her building.
'I was basically sleeping and my whole wall shook, my whole room was shaking and it basically blew my window up. It opened up,' the woman told PIX11. 'My lights and my stuff on my dresser fell off. I thought it was a bomb.'
The five-story building is located 1644-1646 Park Avenue and houses a Spanish Christian Church on the bottom floor.
One witness said that the explosion knocked groceries off shelves at a nearby supermarket, while NBC4's Jonathan Vigliotti reported from the scene that numerous stores had had their windows blown out.
'There are about 10 store fronts, half of them have their windows blown out,' he said. 'It's really hard to even see through [the smoke]. The entire area Cops everywhere, fire fighters everywhere.'
Another witness told NBC4 that she saw people running towards the building to help anyone who was hurt.
'It was chaos,' she said.
Metro-North Railway has elevated tracks right next to the west of the building, and the New Haven line in and out of the city through Grand Central Terminal have been temporarily suspended.
Passengers reported being ordered off the train and onto the platform at the nearby 125th Street station.
The smoke was so thick that reporters covering the explosion from news helicopters were ordered out of the area.
Source : BBC , SkyNews , DailyMail
Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/patryn.worldlatestnews
A gas leak is suspected in causing the building on the corner of 116th Street and Park Avenue to burst into flames, as ConEdison workers are at the scene and gas lines have been cut off in the surrounding buildings.
Those in the area reported hearing a loud boom and smoke in the area a little after 9am, and some were even evacuated.
Mount Sinai and Harlem hospitals have received 11 injured in the explosion so far, with one patient being treated for serious head trauma. At least one man has been rescued from the building so far, being led away from the scene on a stretcher.
'People who were living in the building, they flew out when the blast hit,' said Denise Ortiz, who was nearby when she heard the explosion. 'It knocked everyone into the debris.'
She added that she initially worried the Metro North had been targeted in an attack.
'It sounded like a bomb went off,' she told NBC 4. 'Everyone started screaming, "They blew up the Metro North!" But when we ran over there , we saw a building had collapsed and it was not the Metro North.'
A woman who lives in a building just a block away says she was sleeping when she heard the explosion and the blast rocked her building.
'I was basically sleeping and my whole wall shook, my whole room was shaking and it basically blew my window up. It opened up,' the woman told PIX11. 'My lights and my stuff on my dresser fell off. I thought it was a bomb.'
The five-story building is located 1644-1646 Park Avenue and houses a Spanish Christian Church on the bottom floor.
One witness said that the explosion knocked groceries off shelves at a nearby supermarket, while NBC4's Jonathan Vigliotti reported from the scene that numerous stores had had their windows blown out.
'There are about 10 store fronts, half of them have their windows blown out,' he said. 'It's really hard to even see through [the smoke]. The entire area Cops everywhere, fire fighters everywhere.'
Another witness told NBC4 that she saw people running towards the building to help anyone who was hurt.
'It was chaos,' she said.
Metro-North Railway has elevated tracks right next to the west of the building, and the New Haven line in and out of the city through Grand Central Terminal have been temporarily suspended.
Passengers reported being ordered off the train and onto the platform at the nearby 125th Street station.
The smoke was so thick that reporters covering the explosion from news helicopters were ordered out of the area.
Source : BBC , SkyNews , DailyMail
Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/patryn.worldlatestnews
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