A thunderous gas explosion devastated a rowhouse neighborhood, killing five people, and suspicion fell on an 83-year-old cast-iron gas main. The fiery blast was latest natural-gas disaster to raise questions about the safety of the nation's aging, 2.5-million-mile network of gas and liquid pipelines.
The explosion, which flattened a pair of rowhouses and set fire to a block of homes late Wednesday night, occurred in an area where the underground gas main lacked shut-off valves. It took utility workers five hours of toil in the freezing cold to punch through ice, asphalt and concrete and seal the 12-inch main with foam, finally cutting off the flow of gas that fed the raging flames.
An elderly couple who lived in the home died. They were identified by their daughter-in-law as Beatrice Hall, 74, and her husband, William, 79, the Allentown Morning Call newspaper reported on its website. The names of the others were not immediately released.
It took utility workers five hours of toil in the freezing cold to punch through the ice, the asphalt and a layer of reinforced concrete and seal the 12-inch main with foam, finally cutting off the flow of gas that fed the raging flames.
Images from NBC station WCAU showed flames reaching hundreds of the feet into the air from the scene of the blast. The explosion was so powerful it was felt nine miles away in Bethlehem, Pa.
Dorothy Yanett, 65, said was in her living room with her husband awaiting the evening news when she heard a series of booms.
"Everything falling and crashing, glass, just a nightmare," said. She found glass in the shoes she was going to put to leave the house. "There was no odor, there was no smell. Then it was like all hell broke loose."
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