Nov 26, 2008 7:14 am US/Eastern
Powerful Explosion Destroys Allentown Home
ALLENTOWN (AP) ―
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An explosion destroyed a home in Allentown, Pennsylvania Tuesday afternoon and left two people injured.
CBS
An explosion of unknown origin leveled an Allentown house Tuesday, heavily damaging two neighboring homes, launching a wheelchair 40 feet up into a tree and shaking buildings a mile away. Two brothers, both still conscious, were pulled from the debris.
Authorities marveled that anyone had survived the 1:15 p.m. blast in a neighborhood of single-family homes.
Brothers Cesar Coto, 52, and Miguel Irizarry, 41, were taken to a hospital, Fire Chief Robert Scheirer said. The brothers were listed in stable condition Tuesday evening. Scheirer said both were interviewed at the hospital.
Scheirer said he felt the blast in his office about a mile away and thought something in his building had blown up. Of the brothers' survival, he said: "It's amazing, isn't it?"
Officials condemned two neighboring homes that were severely damaged. The American Red Cross was helping at least 10 adults and seven children displaced by the blast.
The brothers' elderly mother, who uses a wheelchair, also lived in the house, but was not home at the time of the explosion.
Neighbor Bob Walko, 55, said he thought the explosion was from an airplane that had crashed. It shook his house and knocked pictures and clocks off the walls, he said.
"It was just unbelievable. I never experienced anything like that in my life," Walko said.
Walko said he ran across the street to the home and found one brother under a couple of boards.
He removed the lumber and said the man complained of back pain.
The other brother was found in the basement.
Neighbor Byron Weitknecht, 61, who lived across the street, smoked a cigarette as he surveyed the debris that littered his front yard: countless shards of glass, the twisted remains of an aluminum garage door, a window frame, a brass doorknob. He wondered how he was going to clean it all up.
Firefighters and gas utility workers were on the scene. Scheirer said an investigation into the cause of the explosion will begin Wednesday morning, when heavy equipment is brought in to clear the rubble.
Chris Brown, a spokesman for gas company UGI Utilities Inc., said workers could not find any elevated gas readings in the neighborhood after the blast.
"Whether there was a leak as a result of the explosion or whether a leak caused the explosion, we have no idea at this point," Brown said.
(© 2010 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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