the death toll in that gas explosion in harlem, new york, now stands at seven. crews are frantically digging through the rubble looking for nine people when are still unaccounted for. geraldo rivera actually grew up in that neighborhood. he s live with the latest this morning. it s my old stomping grounds, my first law office was right around the corner right where this explosion took place. i live right now just about a mile and a half down madison avenue here. but frigid, cold morning adding to the misery and the shock of the people here at 116th street and park avenue where that massive explosion happened. 9:13 in the morning, they got the call that there was this awful stink of gas. the comed people arrived.
missing, steve, brian and elisabeth. first off, they say in that area, i have not been up there there is a lot of old buildings. there is an imminent danger. that business was tucked in between two relatively new buildings. 1644 and 1646 park avenue, brian, are buildings that date back 100 years. that s one of the problems. when the explosion happened, there was a fear that the asbestos used in routinely in construction in those days was propelled through the air. at that time there was a stiff breeze blowing. it came all across lower harlem, central park north there, 110th street and over to the west side before it finally dissipated. it is still smoking, this stubborn blaze where these two structures collapsed with a resounding explosion that was heard for a mile away by millions of new yorkers.
it happened yesterday morning at 9:30. east harlem, the upper east side of manhattan, 116th street and park avenue. this was the escape. explosion and fire, two five-store buildings just brought to the ground. the two of them crashed at almost immediately, and the blast sparked a large fire, as you can see here. a lot of rescue efforts afterwardswards and shock wavesf explosions blew out windows in several buildings. hundreds of firefighters riched are rushed rushed to the escape. it was five airplane blaze, some people in critical condition, including this 15-year-old boy. self people a few block away from the site tell us they had trouble sleeping the night before because the last night because the smoky smell of the smoldering debris was so powerful, and many actually
pre-war, meaning they date before the 1940s. older buildings, generally oil burning buildings. that cob a clue. there is not much more of a pattern to join that. these were called multiple use buildings. on the storefront level, at 116th street and park avenue, you will see these two buildings. on the bottom, one was a spanish-christian church. the other was a piano repair shop. on top of each were four or five levels of apartments, usually somewhere between 2-4 apartments per floor. that is fueling the immediate concerns about injuries. so far, two surrounding hospitals who are expecting casualties. the numbers are low. control room, do we have a fire official on? we have tom van esen, who is the
we re continuing our breaking news coverage. this is another angle, something we haven t seen before at 116th street and park avenue in manhattan, where now we are hearing from the fire department of new york that this is a partial building collapse with a fire. so, they aren t using the word explosion yet, but it does appear that that s what precipitated what we re seeing right now, an extraordinarily heavy smoke condition and reports you can see this hope all the way to midtown. if you re not familiar with new york city, the trains often originate in grand central station, that s at 42nd street. we are talking about 116th street, so 74 blocks away, and in that area, all the way down