Authorities respond to massive explosion in East Harlem

[cali]

New York police and fire officials were responding to reports of a massive explosion in Manhattan's East Harlem, authorities said Wednesday.

There were at least 11 minor injuries as clouds of dark smoke rose over the residential neighborhood of red-brick tenements, fire officials said.

Metro North commuter rail service, which runs along the site of the blast on Park Avenue, was suspended, officials said.

"Two buildings have collapsed. I hope there is no one in there. It's just rubble," a worker at a nearby flea market said.

Clouds of dark smoke could be seen for a three-block radius as hundreds of rescue officials descended on the scene.

CNN first learned of this story via Twitter.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/12/us/manhattan-building-explosion/

video at link

[jsr]

1. Gas leak?

[bullwinkle428]

7. Failure of a 127-YEAR-OLD gas main!!

"They're still clearing away the debris along Park Avenue in Harlem. A natural gas explosion already has taken six lives officially, and there likely will be more victims to be found. People said they saw pianos flying through the air. And then, of course, there's this:

Less than two weeks before two East Harlem buildings exploded leaving at least six dead, Consolidated Edison workers checked the 127-year-old gas main in front of the site and found no apparent leaks, according to a ConEd spokesman.

A 127-year old pipe.

This might have been a bridge in Indiana, or a levee in Mississippi, or a potholed highway on the Kansas plains. Instead, it was a cast-iron pipe that was laid down in the first Cleveland administration. The country is falling apart. Everybody knows it. (Yesterday, on my usual morning walk along the Charles, I crossed a footbridge over the river and stepped over what appeared to be a fault line in the middle of the span. You could see the geese swimming by below. And the Commonwealth — God save it! — is one of the states that takes this sort of seriously.) In 1984, when he ran for president, Gary Hart, American Cassandra that he is, warned the country about its crumbling infrastructure. He pounded the theme so relentlessly that people mocked him for it. But he was right, and the problem is worse now than it was.

The country needs some combination of the WPA and the space program to put itself back together again. Real unemployment is stubbornly in the low double digits. Meanwhile, bridges fall into rivers, and sinkholes devour houses, and 127-year old gas pipes explode and kil people. And yet we're too lazy, or too goddamn cheap, to tax ourselves to rebuild what everybody with eyes knows needs to be rebuilt. In 2011, the president proposed a $60 billion infrastructure bill as part of a hobs package. It died in the Senate. He beat the drum for an "infrastructure bank." The Republicans in the House voted 50 times to repeal his health-care law."

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/

[jsr]

8. It's more important to send gazillions to foreign countries

to enrich corrupt foreign politicians.

[City Lights]

2. WGN reporting that a neighbor is quoted as saying they've

been smelling gas in the area for weeks.

[Agschmid]

3. Gee I sure hope that neighbor took the initiative to report it...

[MerryBlooms]

4. CBS2 NY Live stream

Update: 2 fatalities (female), 17 injured.

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/live-video/

[MerryBlooms]

5. Update: 7 dead, 2 missing, 69 injured.

Fire Department spokesman Danny Glover said Thursday that a seventh body had been found in the rubble. Police say the victim, recovered around 7:15 a.m., was an adult male.

Three bodies were found Wednesday and three more overnight.

A gas leak triggered the explosion Wednesday morning on Park Avenue and 116th Street in East Harlem. The blast also injured more than 60 people, including at least three children.

The explosion shattered windows a block away, cast a plume of smoke over the skyline and sent people running into the streets.

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/national_world&id=9464678

[leftynyc]

6. I passed the explosion site

riding the rails into the city this morning. It's still smoldering and smoking. 2 buildings completely destroyed and trains running at a much reduced speed to avoid more vibrations that could trigger collapses in nearby buildings.