Three dead, 50 hurt as New York store explodes
Explosions sparked by a fire in a New York hardware store toppled the building’s roof and brick facade, burying dozens of firefighters beneath the rubble.
Three died and more than 50 people were injured.
About 20 minutes after firefighters arrived, propane tanks and paint stored in the basement exploded.
The building crumpled onto firefighters, burying many and tossing others across the street.
Firefighters, police officers and other rescue personnel were among the injured. Two civilians suffered minor injuries.
‘‘It sounded like a charge when they detonate a building to demolish it,’’ said Cleavon Wills, 27, who lives in an apartment above the store and was playing keyboard in the adjacent Lighthouse Church.
‘‘I thought the whole building had collapsed.’’
Wills said fellow churchgoers were thrown from their seats.
Outside the hardware store, he said, ‘‘There were firemen lying underneath a wall of bricks. They were unconscious and bloody, and their raincoats were torn.’’
One firefighter described the scene as a ‘‘war zone.’’
‘‘What was a quiet Sunday turned into a terrible tragedy very quickly,’’ said fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen.
Residents within several blocks of the store were evacuated from their homes. More than 350 firefighters and 70 rescue units were called to the scene.
Two victims, Harry Ford, 50, and John Downing, 40, were buried beneath the rubble. The third firefighter, Brian Fahey, 46, died after falling into the basement as the building collapsed.
A fourth firefighter, Joseph Vosilla, 41, was in critical condition.
All three of those killed were married fathers - a fact noted by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani during a hospital press conference. Ford and Fahey had three children while Downing had two.
‘‘I can’t think of a more tragic Father’s Day,’’ Giuliani said.
The hardware store, the Long Island General Supply Company, is on the ground floor of the two-storey building, with apartments above it. It is located in the Queens section of the city.
Neighbourhood resident Spiro Colovos, 55, said he heard a series of pops and a large explosion, ran to the scene and saw firefighters administering CPR to their colleagues.
‘‘They looked like they were in terrible shape,’’ he said.
The three firefighters were the second, third and fourth to die on duty in New York City this year.
New York City last lost three firefighters on December 18, 1998, in an apartment fire in Brooklyn. Six were killed in a 1978 structural fire.
The last time three US firefighters were killed on duty was in Keokuk, Iowa, on December 22, 1999, two weeks after a Massachusetts blaze killed six firefighters.
