A natural gas pipeline leak triggered a violent explosion that destroyed a Bay Area home on Thursday, injuring six people and damaging several other properties.
At least one person was inside the home before it was flattened by the explosion. Alameda County Fire Department spokesperson Cheryl Hurd said the person managed to escape uninjured, but six other people were injured, three of them seriously.
“It was a chaotic scene,” Hurd said. “There was fire, debris and smoke everywhere, power lines were down, people were evacuating themselves from their homes. … There were people on the sidewalk with severe burns.”
A third-party construction crew working in the 800 block of East Llewellyn Avenue in Hayward struck a Pacific Gas & Electric Co. underground natural gas line Thursday morning, causing a leak, according to a statement from the utility company.
Hurd said fire crews were first dispatched to the scene at 7:46 a.m. after PG&E reported a suspected natural gas leak. Hurd said PG&E officials were already on scene when fire trucks arrived and reportedly told firefighters their assistance was not needed.
Utility crews attempted to isolate the damaged pipeline, but natural gas was leaking at multiple locations. PG&E said in a statement that workers shut off the natural gas supply at about 9:25 a.m. and the explosion occurred about ten minutes later.
Firefighters were called back to the same location, where at least 75 firefighters encountered heavy flames and smoke. Surrounding homes were damaged by the explosion and falling debris. Three buildings on two different properties were destroyed and several other buildings were also damaged, according to fire officials.
Six people were transported to Eden Medical Center, three of them with serious injuries that required immediate transport. Officials declined to comment on the nature of their injuries.
Video taken from a Ring doorbell attached to a neighboring house showed an excavator digging near the house shortly before the explosion. The explosion rattled nearby homes, shattered windows and sent construction workers fleeing.
Initially, authorities suspected that two people were missing after the explosion. Hurd said that’s not the case.
“They brought in two cadaver dogs to see if anyone was trapped under the rubble, and those cadaver dogs cleaned everything up,” Hurd said.
Brittany Maldonado had just returned from dropping her son off at school Thursday morning when she noticed a PG&E employee checking her gas meter. He told her something was wrong and they had to turn off the gas to her house.
She didn’t think much about it.
“After about 45 minutes, everything started shaking,” she told reporters at the scene. “It was a huge boom… First we thought someone had run into our house – a truck or something – and then we looked outside and it was like a war zone.”
The house across the street was razed, Maldonado said. When she saw the footage from her ring camera, she said it looked as if a bomb had gone off in the home.
“I’m just glad no one was killed,” she said.
Officials with the Sheriff’s Office, PG&E and the National Transportation Safety Board are continuing to investigate the circumstances leading up to the explosion.
In 2010, a PG&E pipeline ruptured in the San Bruno community, destroying 38 homes and killing eight people. California regulators subsequently approved a $1.6 billion fine against the utility for violating state and federal pipeline safety standards.
Staff writer Hannah Fry contributed to this report
