Explosion

This morning I was sitting at my kitchen table, Mimi underfoot, when we were jolted by a thunderous explosion.

For perspective, this place is loud. All the stinking time. There are fireworks, canons, subway blasting, and similar loud blasts going off fairly often. I don't even flinch when I hear them. And I try not to show any emotion at all because Mimi would pick up on it and be afraid.

But when the blast went off today, there was no pretending that nothing happened. It is the loudest explosion I've ever heard, and it shook my building.

I looked out the north side of the building, and everyone was walking around as usual. I ran to the south side and didn't see any movement either. I ran back to the north. Nothing. Back to the south...

That's when I saw people running towards the east. The smoke seemed slow to rise above the trees, but soon it was thick and black. I could have seen the explosion site from my house if a few tall thick trees were not blocking my view.

I didn't know what it was. I knew there were dozens if not hundreds of onlookers by now (a few seconds later). I could make no contribution to the rescue. I worried that there might be other things nearby that would catch fire and blow up. A natural gas explosion is what I thought at first, though the building nearest the action was not on fire. It appeared to be something in the street. I was still afraid it could be a truck full of exploding chemicals, and since my building was so close, I thought another explosion might take out my building.

I had to take my doggy and run. I decided this before I heard the first sirens.

We went to the basement to get my e-bike. I couldn't find Mimi's carrier backpack though; I thought I had left it downstairs. I decided to take her by foot, or carry her if I needed to.

We went out the gate, at which point I was able to ask some people what happened. They said it was vehicle that exploded. Not a crash, just a one-vehicle explosion.  I could see from far off what was going on, and it was at this point that I knew for sure that my doggy and I didn't need to run.

By this time, police, firemen and ambulances had all done their initial work.

We walked gingerly down to the intersection and we saw a few twisted strips of metal that used to be a passenger van. It was still on fire. The mangled roof of the van had been blown across six lanes of traffic and the police were pulling it out of the way. Broken glass was everywhere (Mimi was in my arms at this point).

I found two young men who told me what happened. The van had four people in it. They were manual laborers who did interior decoration (paint walls, glue down floors, install cabinets, etc.). They had cylinders of oxygen in the van that they used in their work. And it is believed that someone in the van lit a cigarette.

I had purposely left my camera at home. I did not want a photo. I made sure I arrived late enough to not see any bodies. The young men said that 4 or 5 were taken away. They did not specify the state of the bodies (no one will talk about that here, I've noticed). But no one inside that van could have survived that blast intact. Later someone told me a lady walking home from the veggie market was hit by the blast. She could even be one of my neighbors, since they all go there to buy veggies (I go elsewhere for veggies).

Below is the intersection where it happened, about six hours after it happened. The white car is in about the place of the explosion.

In the upper left hand corner is a hard to see scorched spot on the pavement where the blast occurred. The white mangled mess on the median, by the flowers, is what's left of the windshield. The building behind here has all its windows blown out.

Those are some hardy pansies. (The tape is not police tape. The tape is there to keep people from treading on the newly planted pansies.)

I go by this location often. Thank God I was not there this morning.