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ALLENTOWN, Pa. Six people were missing after a massive natural gas explosion demolished at least two houses, set fire to several more and sent flames hundreds of feet into the air, a newspaper reported Thursday.
The explosion happened at 10:45 p.m. in the home of Beatrice Hall, 74, and husband William, 79, the Allentown Morning Call newspaper reported on its website.
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.
Up to 600 people, including many elderly residents, were evacuated and firefighters expected a total of eight houses would be lost and 16 others damaged.
Underground gas lines were also ablaze and fire crews were struggling to dig through thick layers of snow and ice to reach one ruptured line that was feeding the flames, Fire Chief Robert Scheirer said.
The Arthritis Foundation building was badly damaged, firefighters said, and the windows of a senior citizens complex were blown out.
More than 500 seniors from the Gross Towers complex were among the evacuees, although some were reluctant to leave. Many people were taken to a local Jewish community center and an agricultural hall at the Allentown fairgrounds for refuge.
The blast also downed dozens of high-power electrical lines, according to radio reports monitored by the Morning Call newspaper and msnbc.com. PPL Electric Utilities shut down power in the area.
The Halls' son, Mark Hall of Bethlehem, and his wife went to the area trying to get news of the couple, Hall's father-in-law told the Morning Call.
"The police haven't given us a status," he added. The paper said he declined to give his name.
The paper said fire crews were still battling to control the blaze at 3 a.m. ET with three houses still on fire.
David Van Allen, manager of the citys emergency medical services, told Morning Call that six people had been taken to hospitals with minor injuries. "We're in the middle of a mass casualty incident," he added.
Several buildings caught fire after the blast in Allentown, Pa.
Jason Soke, who lives nearby, told the paper that he ran to the scene after hearing the blast.
"I was stunned. There were bricks everywhere. It blew pieces of the house across the street. I thought, holy cow!," he told the Morning Call.
'It's gone".
Another onlooker near the scene of the fire, Leonard Hein, said the blast sounded like a military rocket.
"I thought I was back in Vietnam," he told the Morning Call.
Dale Dalrymple told the Lehigh Valley Express-Times that he lives directly across the street from the destroyed home.
"I was in the basement watching a movie with my granddaughter," Dalrymple said. "All I felt was like a suction and a big boom and I ran upstairs and here my front door was blown open."
After fleeing his house in temperatures below freezing he said he saw flames coming from the second story of the row home that had been attached to the destroyed home.
"The house is not even there. It's gone," he told the Express-Times.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
This practice should be outlawed period. And there should be no exemptions concerning clean water and air, period. Nada.
The point about the infrastructure being overage and inadaquete for what we are asking it to do is well taken, also.
