Some residents said they smelled gas before the explosion. He added that three firefighter.
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A gas explosion and subsequent fire Wednesday night into Thursday morning at a Silver Spring, Maryland, apartment complex has killed at least two people and left dozens more injured or missing.
Police and fire crews “are still working to identify the missing people from this event”, said Montgomery County Police Assistant Chief Russ Hamill during the news conference.
“People were dropping children and jumping out of other windows”, Fire Chief Scott Goldstein told The Washington Post at the scene. “Everybody was getting out of the building as rapidly as possible”. Firefighters made many rescues of people trapped inside the apartment buildings, including deploying a ladder truck to rescue residents trapped on upper floors of one of the buildings, officials said. By about 1:45 a.m., firefighters had knocked down most of the fire, but the flames continued to smolder into the daylight hours.
Washington Gas, a unit of WGL Holdings Inc., which provided service to the complex, said in a statement it was helping in the investigation. Every household is eligible for support and help in finding a new place to live, said an official, who urged all residents affected by the fire to come forward.
Regional disaster director Paul Carden said Thursday those who were displaced are primarily Spanish speakers. Translators were being brought in to ease communication.
Officials said that the explosion displaced nearly a hundred residents and some remain missing. Television footage showed flames and smoke pouring from the building as firefighters rescued a man from an upstairs apartment window.
Just then he felt the bed, with him and his wife in it, fall through the floor of their third story home.
Three firefighters also were injured by the power blast that sent debris into a parking lot across the street, WRC reported.
Brightly coloured bras hung from a tree in front of the apartments, apparently from a dresser drawer launched in the explosion. Windows across the street were broken. Part of the building collapsed after the explosion late Wednesday.
Some occupants and bystanders reported an explosion, spokesman Captain Oscar Garcia.
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“I just see fire everywhere”, she said.
