MUST SEE: Manhattan explosion caught on video, plus pre-arrival scenes & radio traffic from 7-alarm fire

Mar 26, 2015

7 1 minute read

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At least a dozen people have been injured, including four who are critical after an explosion this (Thursday) afternoon in Manhattan’s East Village neighborhood. While there was a mayday reported, FDNY confirms all firefighters were accounted for. As you will see in the video below fire took hold of three buildings and the fire was escalated to 7-alarms.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMrfWGbmxkU

Immediately above is surveillance video that shows the initial explosion. Immediately below is pre-arrival video that shows one woman above the blast trying to get down the fire escape. The man climbing the fire escape looking for other victims is off-duty FDNY. Read the account of Mike Shepherd, Squad 41.

Further below that is the initial radio traffic and more early video.

Click here if video above fails to play

New York Times:

Francis X. Gribbon, the chief spokesman for the New York Fire Department, said the preliminary indication was that some kind of gas explosion preceded the inferno.

“It was probably a gas thing, it looks like,” he said. “But that’s not confirmed.”

By 4:05 p.m. — less than an hour after it was first reported — the event was in the seventh alarm, Mr. Gribbon said, meaning that roughly 250 firefighters from about 50 Fire Department units were at the location. The buildings are at 121 and 123 Second Avenue near Seventh Street.

@ABC7NY pic.twitter.com/fLyQoKIOkG

— Mahesh Rana (@mesh_mellow) March 26, 2015

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoy3pIiTQlM

New York Daily News:

Investigators suspect the 3:20 p.m. blast was caused by a gas leak at the Sushi Park restaurant on the ground floor.

“I heard some sound, all of us, a big sound,” said Shameem Noorb, a cashier at the Veselka Restaurant two blocks away.

Noorb said he ran out and “then we saw some people on the floor.”