Four people are dead and one person is missing after a house exploded in southwest Pennsylvania on Saturday morning, officials said.
The explosion occurred in the area of Rustic Ridge Drive and Brookside Drive in Plum Borough, about 20 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, according to a Facebook post from the Allegheny County Government, which added that a 911 call came in shortly after 10:20 a.m. reporting the explosion, “multiple injuries and several houses on fire.”
First responders who arrived on the scene found people trapped under debris and two homes “engulfed in fire,” plus one that appeared to have exploded, and multiple others with the windows blown out, according to the Facebook post.
Officials said three structures were destroyed and at least a dozen more were damaged, and that officials and water tankers were on the scene from multiple departments.
Three people were transported to nearby hospitals, officials said, adding that two were transported in stable condition and released, and that a third remains in critical condition.
More than 20 firefighters who fought the blaze were also evaluated, many for heat exhaustion.
The victims have not yet been publicly identified. The Allegheny County Office of the Medical Examiner will identify them, according to the Facebook post.
Amie Downs, communications director for Allegheny County, said Sunday morning that no information on the victims was available and that the medical examiner’s office “expects that it will take some time for formal identification to be complete.”
The cause of the explosion is under investigation by Plum and county law enforcement and the county fire marshal’s office. The state public utilities commission and local utilities also were at the scene.
George Emanuele, who lives three houses down from the home that exploded, told the Tribune-Review that he and a neighbor went to the home before the fire got out of control, where they found a man laying in the backyard and dragged him away from the scene.
Rafal Kolankowski, who lives a few houses away, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that the explosion broke the windows in his house and knocked him and his wife to the ground.
After recovering and checking on his son, Kolankowski went outside and a woman told him another woman had been upstairs and a man was in the basement. The other woman later emerged covered in white ash, but the individual in the basement had not yet exited, he said.
“It’s just tragic, I mean, it looks like a war zone — it looks like a bomb hit our neighborhood and it’s just unfortunate,” Kolankowski said. “I was just with some of the neighbors yesterday, right, and now this happens.”
Jeremy Rogers, who lives two doors down, told the paper he had been out shopping when he got an alert about a problem at his house and saw “all sorts of stuff flying around.” His family was able to get out safely and he was allowed to go inside quickly to rescue his dog, although he could not locate the family’s three cats.
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro said in a tweet that he and his wife, Lori, were praying for the victims, adding that his office was working with state emergency management officials to assist local emergency responders.
“As you rebuild, we will have your back,” Shapiro wrote in the tweet.
Officials set up a “Disaster Distress Helpline” and the Red Cross and Salvation Army were assisting residents impacted, according to the Allegheny County Government Facebook post.
Officials were back at the scene Sunday morning, and a news conference was slated for noon local time, according to the Facebook post.