Two residential buildings in Manhattan collapsed in an explosion on Wednesday, killing two women and injuring at least 17 other people as a serious fire spewed out thick smoke, officials said.
The explosion struck a building at 116th Street and Park Avenue in the East Harlem neighborhood of New York, where witnesses said they were jolted awake by what sounded like an earthquake.
Police said two residential buildings next door to each other had collapsed in the incident, killing two women and injuring 17 other people who were transferred to local hospitals.
Mainline train services in and out of Grand Central terminal were suspended as a result of the incident next to its tracks.
Hundreds of police and firefighters were on site with emergency vans and fire trucks, as a dense column of smoke spewed into the sky over the Metro-North railway line, a witness said.
There was no official confirmation of the cause of the blast but indications pointed towards a gas leak.
Energy company Con Edison said it got a call alerting crews to a possible gas leak at 9:13 am, just minutes before the blast.
“A resident reported smelling gas inside the apartment building at 1652 Park Avenue but indicated the odor may have been coming from outside the building,” company spokesman Bob McGee said.
“Two Con Edison crews were dispatched at 9:15 am and arrived just after the explosion occurred,” he added.
The company said it was working closely with the New York Fire Department to make the area safe but said it could not yet confirm that the blast was caused by gas.