Three Killed as Propane Blast Levels Building

A propane gas explosion sparked after a nozzle broke off a pressurized container destroyed a two-story building in Brooklyn today, killing three people and seriously injuring four more, officials said.

“There was a phenomenal explosion,” said Rabbi Elliot Amsel of Congregation Hamaor, across the street from the blast. He said every window in the synagogue was shattered.

“Now it looks like London in World War II,” Amsel said.

More than 100 firefighters searched through smoking rubble looking for victims. “It’s a brick-by-brick, beam-by-beam search,” Deputy Commissioner John Mulligan said.

Roof Lifted Off

“We believe all persons have been accounted for,” Fire Commissioner Joseph Spinnato said. A crane was called to lift the building’s fallen roof in case there were still people trapped inside.

Spinnato said the blast occurred at a two-story brick building with three plumbing-related businesses, a bakery and some apartments.

Spinnato said the blast apparently occurred after a small propane tank fell and started leaking. A witness, Ari Dubov, said he saw two employees of a plumbing company in the building’s ground floor carrying pressurized gas containers marked “flammable.”

“Somehow, they just, like, banged together, and one of the nozzles broke off,” said Dubov, a 28-year-old truck driver. “They heard it, and they dropped (the containers) and they said, ‘Oh . . . something’s going to happen.’ ”

Dubov, who watched the scene from across the street, said he heard a hissing noise and “saw the vapor coming out” of a container.

The two men “ran in (to the store) to try to get out as many people as they could,” he said. “By the time they came out, the whole building just came down” in what he termed “a tremendous explosion.”

The fire that followed the explosion was fed by a broken gas pipe in the building, according to Homer Bishop, the Fire Department’s chief of operations.

Bob Loftus, a spokesman for Brooklyn Union Gas, said Plumbing Associates Corp. is a tenant in the building.

Fire Department spokesman Efrain Parrilla said two people were dead at the scene and a third died at a hospital. At least four more were seriously injured in the explosion.

A spokeswoman for the city’s Emergency Medical Service said that 15 and 20 people had been injured.