Puerto Rico Building Blast Kills at Least 18, Injures 82

An explosion apparently caused by a gas leak blew apart a six-story building Thursday, killing at least 18 people, injuring 82 and leaving up to 15 missing, authorities said.

Drivers were crushed in their cars and body parts lay in the streets. Rescue workers pulled dozens of bloody, dust-covered survivors from the rubble. Many of the survivors had been cut by flying glass.

Police expected to find more bodies in the mounds of torn steel and concrete that had been offices and apartments.

Officials suspected a leak in a pipe carrying liquid petroleum cooking gas caused the blast, and said the building’s owner had been complaining for weeks of escaping gas. The San Juan Gas Co., however, said it couldn’t confirm a gas explosion and said there had been no gas service to the building.

Police Chief Pedro Toledo said utility workers were outside the building on Wednesday to locate a leak and had returned early Thursday to repair it. Amid the rubble, a gas company truck rested on its roof, its wheels sticking into the air.

The explosion sent shards of shattered glass into a Roman Catholic parochial school across the street. Some of the 500 students inside the Colegio La Milagrosa, or School of the Miraculous, were knocked to the ground, but no one was injured.

The explosion in San Juan’s congested Rio Piedras district ripped a 50-foot-wide hole in the concrete building, partially collapsing the first four floors and exposing rooms inside.

Acting Gov. Norma Burgos declared three days of mourning, and President Clinton declared Puerto Rico a disaster area, a move authorizing federal aid for recovery efforts.