Four dead, dozens injured in California gas blast inferno
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
In one street a dozen homes were seen engulfed in flames. Witnesses spoke of a smoldering crater the size of a city intersection, while scores of raging fires turned San Bruno’s smoke-filled night sky orange
.CommentsTwitterLinkedInDiggBuzzEmail.Glenn Chapman, Agence France-Presse · Friday, Sept. 10, 2010
SAN BRUNO, California - California firefighters were Friday grimly searching smoldering ruins after a huge gas pipeline explosion triggered an inferno killing four people, amid fears the toll will rise.
As fire crews also doused “hot spots” and moved into dozens of burnt-out homes, Lieutenant Governor Abel Maldonado said a post-dawn assessment showed 52 other people had also been injured, three of them with critical burns.
A street-by-street check revealed 38 buildings were destroyed and seven others significantly damaged by the explosion and the ensuing inferno.
“The sun is shining over there, but there is still a dark cloud over this city,” said San Bruno mayor James Ruane. “You’ve heard the numbers, they are only going to get higher.”
Local utility Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) said a natural gas main ruptured, but they have not been able to get close enough to the heart of the huge smoldering crater left behind to determine the reason.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Maldonado said. “You have a 30-inch diameter gas pipe in the middle of the road that just exploded; debris everywhere.”
Federal investigators were joining local authorities to figure out the cause. “We will get to the bottom of this,” Maldonado vowed. “We need to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
CNN television reported that some residents said there had been a strong smell of gas in the air for the last three weeks.
The neighborhood was being treated like a crime scene, with police restricting access in an effort to prevent looting.
The massive explosion and inferno ripped through a neighborhood in San Bruno near San Francisco early Thursday evening, leaving residents shocked by the sudden devastation.
A huge fountain of flames blasted from the ground like a blow torch where the pipe was ruptured and fire spread relentlessly to houses in several directions.
About 100 people fled for their lives, many weeping while others paused to capture the chaotic scene on cell phone cameras.
“I heard a sound like a low flying plane, then all of a sudden the house shook,” said Tina DiIoia, who was with her baby in their condominium, when the explosion occurred about a kilometer away.
“Then there was another explosion. I went outside and there was debris falling from the air.”
“It looks like the entire mountainside is burning,” Ms. DiIoia said.
“It was just a huge explosion,” another one resident recounted. “More than that, we felt the heat. It was a huge heat wave that sucked the air out for a minute.”
In one street a dozen homes were seen engulfed in flames, as the scores of raging fires turned San Bruno’s smoke-filled night sky orange.
Up to 200 firefighters were dispatched to battle the blaze, but they were no match for the flames as the intense heat reportedly melted fire truck windows and car tail-lights several dozen metres from the flames.
A helicopter and specially-equipped airplanes dumped water and flame retardant gel on burning homes.
“We made a terrific effort in stopping the fire the way we did,” said San Bruno fire chief Dennis Haag. “As devastating as this was, it could have been so much worse.”
The explosion even destroyed a grid of water mains, cutting off the supply of water.
As of Friday morning, 700 PG&E customers were without electricity and 300 had no natural gas service, according to a utility spokesman.
Maldonado, who is filling in for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on a trip to Asia, declared a state of emergency for the city just three kilometres west of the San Francisco International Airport.
Maldonado toured the destruction, equating it to a bomb blast.
“It’s under control right now,” Maldonado said early Friday. “What is important is we keep doing our work. Four people have been killed here. There is no secret that the numbers will be changing.”
PG&E spokesman Jeff Smith described the fire as “an absolutely horrible situation,” and said that if it turns out the utility was to blame, “we will absolutely take accountability for it.”
“We are really saddened and sorry about this tragedy,” added PG&E president Chris Johns. “We are going to do everything we can to help the folks affected by this.”
.
Read more:
Four dead, dozens injured in California gas blast inferno
Four dead, dozens injured in California gas blast inferno
Linear Mode
