23 Injured in Baltimore High-Rise Building Explosion (+Video)
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – At least 23 people were taken to hospitals after an explosion at the Baltimore Gas & Electric building in downtown Baltimore, US state of Maryland, Wednesday morning.
The Baltimore City Fire Department said the explosion happened just before 8:30 a.m. on the corner of West Fayette and Charles streets. A total of 23 people were rescued from the building, AP reported.
Twenty-one people, all construction contractors, were transported to hospitals after the explosion caused a partial roof collapse. Nine of those injured are considered in critical condition and one in serious condition with burns to his arms and chest. Emergency personnel treated two other people on the ground for burn injuries.
“The incident ran from the 10th floor to the roof,” fire Chief Niles R. Ford said.
A window-washing crew was on a scaffolding at the time of the explosion. Ford said a special operations team needed to break windows in the 10th and 11th floors in order to pull the crew to safety.
Emergency crews completed a floor-by-floor search in the building to find any other injured people. Streets surrounding the area were closed off, and nearby buildings were evacuated.
Baltimore Gas & Electric, which has offices in the building, said in a statement that construction work occurring in the air handling and boiler room likely caused the explosion.
No BGE employees were injured. The building was mostly empty due to the holidays and coronavirus restrictions.
BGE also said the explosion was not “natural gas related” as its services were not active due to the construction work. Natural gas was to blame for an explosion that destroyed three row houses, killed one person and injured seven people in August.
