Blast, fire takes down New York City building
Sucks, hope no one succumbs to their injuries
Quote:
Blast, fire takes down New York City building
Suicide attempt suspected; 15 injured in explosion but none dead
MSNBC staff and news service reports
Updated: 4:18 p.m. ET July 10, 2006
NEW YORK - A four-story building housing doctors’ offices collapsed and burned in an apparent gas explosion Monday after what witnesses described as a thunderous blast that rocked an upscale neighborhood just off Madison Avenue.
At least 15 people were injured, including at least six firefighters, the Fire Department said. One of the injured was the doctor who owned the building.
Fire Department Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta said officials suspect the doctor, who was in critical condition, might have caused a natural gas leak in a suicide attempt. "It is possible it is a suicide [attempt]," he told WNBC-TV.
Shortly before the blast, a utility crew had been in the building next door responding to a report of a natural gas smell.
E-mail warning?
A police official told The Associated Press that the lawyer for the doctor’s wife contacted police recently and said that she had received an e-mail from him in which the physician, 66-year-old Nicholas Bartha, indicated he was contemplating suicide.
He was going through a difficult divorce and was being forced to sell the building, and authorities believe the explosion may have been related to a suicide attempt, the police official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.
The fire department described the collapse as a "major incident," declaring it a four-alarm fire and sending 170 firefighters to the scene.
The building included two doctors’ offices, and records show at least one apartment was in the building as well, Fire Department Lt. Eugene Whyte said. Authorities said a nurse who was supposed to open one of the offices arrived late, narrowly missing the explosion.
‘Everybody started running’
At least two people were under evaluation at a hospital after the collapse. It wasn’t immediately clear if anyone was still trapped inside the building, on 62nd street between Madison and Park avenues on Manhattan’s East Side.
Smoke rose high above the building, wedged between taller structures on 62nd Street between Park and Madison Avenues just a few blocks from Central Park.
Glass and splintered wood was littered across the block, and windows in a neighboring building were blown out.
Yaakov Kermaier, a resident in a building next door, said he was outside when he heard “a deafening boom. I saw the whole building explode in front of me.”
“Everybody started running, nobody knew what was coming next,” he said. His nanny and newborn escaped from their next-door apartment unharmed.
Thad Milonas was operating a coffee cart across from the building when he said the ground shook and the building came down, said he helped two bleeding women from the scene.
Streets around the area were closed off to traffic as ambulances and rescue units raced to the area just before 8:40 a.m. ET.
The building is an upscale neighborhood where the 2000 Census put the median home price at $1 million. On one corner of the street is the high-end Luca Luca clothing store, and across the street is the French retailer Hermes.
