Two Killed ,18 Injured In Explosion In Manhattan

                 

An explosion followed by a fire at a pair of apartment buildings in upper Manhattan on Wednesday has left two people dead and at least 18 injured, officials say.

According to ABC's New York affiliate, at least one of those injured experienced "heavy trauma." The conditions of the others were not immediately known.

The FDNY said it received a call shortly after 9:30 a.m. reporting a large explosion in the five-story apartment building on Park Avenue near 116th Street in East Harlem.

"This is a tragedy of the worst kind," Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a news conference. "There was no indication in time to save people."

The mayor said, based on preliminary information, “the only indication of danger came about 15 minutes earlier when a gas leak was reported to Con Edison. Con Ed dispatched a team to respond. The explosion occurred before that team could arrive.”
                  

“There are a number of people missing,” de Blasio added. “I emphasize that those who are missing could well be safe in another location and just not contacted yet or reachable yet.”

The fire department confirmed that the explosion involved multiple buildings, and escalated the response to five alarms, with 44 units and more than 200 firefighters responding. According to public records, the address that firefighters initially reponded — 1646 Park Ave. — to was built in 1910.

Reached by phone, an employee of the man who owns the building told Yahoo News that she didn't know what might have sparked the blast. The five-story building is home to four floors of apartments and Absolute Piano on the street level. The employee said everyone at the piano shop was safe.

According to public records, the neighboring building — 1646 Park Ave. — is home to apartments and the street-level Spanish Christian Church.

Con Edison spokesman Bob McGee said that the company received a call from a resident of an adjacent reporting that "he smelled gas inside his apartment, but thought the odor could be coming from outside." Two Con Ed crews were dispatched at 9:15 a.m. but arrived just after the explosion.

According to the Associated Press, police, including some wearing gas masks, "handed out medical masks to residents and onlookers because of the thick white smoke that shrouded the area."

Some witnesses described a chaotic scene.

“The whole building shook,” one nearby worker told the New York Post.

"I saw a lady running with no shoes on," another told Agence France-Press. "It was crazy. It was like a war zone. ... I thought it was an earthquake. I got calls from my family who felt it too and that was all the way up town."

 

The explosion occured near elevated train tracks, and Metro North train service into and out of New York's Grand Central Terminal was temporarily suspended.

According to the White House, President Obama was briefed on the incident in New York by Lisa Monaco, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security & Counterterrorism.

Photos posted to Twitter showed smoke and dust coming from the neighborhood north of Central Park, and firefighters searching the rubble for victims.