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Six people were hospitalized in California following a devastating home explosion caught on video.
Footage from a doorbell camera at a home near Hayward in the San Francisco Bay Area showed a property being blown up Thursday, sending debris flying into the air. Sirens could then be heard as a fire broke out.
“It was scary,” Christian Maldanado, who took the video, told KTVU. “It was like a scene from Hollywood. It was unreal.”
The Alameda County Fire Department said 75 firefighters battled the three-alarm blaze, while the explosion and fire left three buildings destroyed and adjacent houses damaged.
Six people were taken to local hospitals and the cause of the incident is under investigation, the department added.
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The explosion occurred in the unincorporated community of Ashland, near the city of Hayward. The city is home to about 160,000 residents in the East Bay, 15 miles south of Oakland.
Pacific Gas & Electric Co. was alerted around 7:35 a.m. that a construction crew — not with the utility — had damaged an underground gas line. Utility workers arrived to isolate the damaged line, but gas was leaking from various locations.
Workers stopped the flow of gas at 9:25 a.m., and the explosion followed shortly afterward.
Gas was flowing for two hours, but the explosion happened 10 minutes after the line was shut off, PG&E spokesperson Tamar Sarkissian confirmed.
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Three structures on two separate lots were severely damaged, said Alameda County Deputy Fire Chief Ryan Nishimoto. Some of the 75 firefighters who responded had to back off momentarily when they felt electric shocks from power lines that had fallen on the site.
“Every window in my house was blown open,” a local resident, identified as Deborah, told KTVU. “There are cracks in the ceiling. My house is destroyed.”
The neighborhood of single-level homes near two freeways had been undergoing construction work for wider sidewalks and bike lanes.
Interstate Highway 238 was temporarily shut down by the California Highway Patrol as authorities responded to the explosion and fire, according to KTVU.
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PG&E told the station that three of the company’s workers were among the injured, while a family member said the other three people injured were residents of the home that exploded and are being treated for third-degree burns.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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