A Building Exploded in the East Village Thursday Afternoon

Adam Mashaal was working from home when he heard what sounded like a car crash. He was meeting with a contractor at his apartment on 2nd Avenue near East 7th Street in Manhattan's East Village, and the two deemed the disturbance loud enough to head downstairs and check it out.

What they found was a building with its face blown off.

An explosion rocked the East Village around 3:17 PM, with initial reports and comments from city officials suggesting at least a dozen and perhaps as many as 30 people are injured, three of them critically. So far, there have been no reported fatalities. Flames quickly engulfed 121 2nd Avenue, the apparent site of the explosion, as well as a neighboring building, both of which collapsed. The chief spokesman of the New York Fire Department suggested to the New York Times that a gas leak is probably to blame, although that hasn't been confirmed. (NYC gas giant Con Edison was reportedly checking up on a meter installation at the building around 2 PM that did not pass inspection.)

Con Edison has shut off all gas to the building, and a slew of police cars, fire trucks, and NYPD hostage negotiation units have blocked off 2nd Avenue from East 14th Street all the way down to Houston—to the frustration of nearby residents and workers apparently undaunted by the threat of smoke inhalation.

Videos by Adam Mashaal

The explosion left pedestrians confused, with a clerk at Abacus Pharmacy on 2nd Avenue near East 10th Street suggesting it was enough to shake the drug store counter. "It was like a bomb," she said, as a woman stood nearby crying. "It was horrible."

Mashaal ran back upstairs to get a phone charger when he realized the severity of the situation, and that he'd likely not be coming back to his apartment for a while. But when he got back downstairs, he was mesmerized by the scene and only left when the police started streaming in around 4 PM. He continued to take video of the situation as the cops pushed the crowd back a quarter of a block, and then a half a block, and finally an entire avenue away. A policeman on the scene said it would be "many, many hours" before the area was safe to re-enter.

This is officially a seven-alarm fire, which means there are about 250 fire fighters on the scene. Mayor Bill de Blasio slipped under police tape at 1st Avenue and East 10th Street at about 5 PM as Mashaal watched and worried that his residence, too, might be lost to the fire. Despite those concerns, he excitedly showed me his captured footage.

"It's hard to grasp time, because it was happening so fast," he said. "But the next-door building started to get bright red and brighter red, and within 30 minutes, I'd say, it went up in flames."

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