The fire caused by an explosion along a natural gas line south of San Francisco was finally contained early Friday afternoon, after claiming at least four lives and sending 52 people to the hospital, three with third-degree burns. A total of 38 houses were destroyed, officials told the San Francisco Chronicle. The explosion – which left a 30-foot-wide crater – happened Thursday evening in a residential neighborhood of San Bruno.
Video footage following the explosion shows a massive fireball raging through the leafy neighborhood. Survivors told reporters of hair-raising escapes — including by a 9-year old boy and his 6-year old sister who were home alone, but whose pets, they feared, may not have made it out. More than 100 residents were evacuated from the area Thursday night and are now staying in evacuation centers. Search crews with cadaver dogs combed the neighborhood on Friday, looking for additional victims.
Some residents told reporters they had smelled gas around the neighborhood in the days before the explosion, and that trucks from Pacific Gas and Electric had been in the area. However, PG&E has yet to confirm this. At a press conference Friday morning, PG&E President Chris Johns said utility workers had not yet been able to get close enough to the rupture site to determine the cause of the explosion.
“We are committed to do what’s right and what’s appropriate to help all the families and others who have been impacted by this tragedy,” Johns said.
Gas flow to the area has been stopped. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) will lead an investigation into the cause of the explosion.
Separately, a gas distributor in Illinois issued warnings to 12 states that some propane deliveries may not have contained enough of the odor-producing chemical that allows people to smell a potential propane leak. The distributor, Aux Sable Liquid Products, confirmed to the Boston Globe that it had sent the letter, dated September 8, to public safety officials in Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Maryland, Virginia and Vermont.
Aux Sable said that it has ceased shipments while it investigates. The action follows an investigation by the Massachusetts attorney general’s office into a July explosion that killed a construction worker at a condominium complex in Norfolk, Mass. Other workers said they did not smell the leak that was found by the state fire marshal to have caused the explosion.
