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Updated at 8.55pm
A MAJOR BLAZE tore through a commercial and residential block in New York’s East Village today following a possible explosion.
Local stations are reporting that twelve people have been injured – three critically.
More than 130 fire fighters are at the scene battling to control the raging flames.
The entire building on Second Avenue was engulfed in flames and a number of floors collapsed.
Thick grey smoke spewed over the Manhattan skyline.
It was not immediately clear how many people may have been inside the building.
The fire department described it as a mixed commercial-residential property. A spokeswoman said more than 30 fire units had responded to a “report of a major emergency, possible building collapse and possible explosion.”
“We have heavy fire on the scene.”
A reporter for local station Fox 5 said the building had collapsed as firefighters responded to the incident.
He said three people had been critically injured. It was not immediately clear whether they had been inside the building at the time.
A number of witnesses told the station they had heard an explosion before the fire broke out.
The area was being evacuated, and other people were being evaluated at the scene.
“I could feel the boom in my apartment, and it short of shook,” said freelance photographer Michael Seto, who lives a block and half away.
He grabbed his camera, ran outside and found a crowd gathering, looking at a brick tenement-style building with a restaurant on the first floor.
“By the second storey, the front part of the building, the facade, the first and second storeys, it looked like, had collapsed into the street,” he said.
Rubble was on the sidewalk, and glass and debris had been flung across an avenue.
As Seto ran up to the building, a fire was starting inside it.
“It spread very quickly and pretty much engulfed the first floor,” he said.
Meanwhile, a man was climbing up the fire escape, not down, he said.
“People were calling to him that the building’s on fire — he needs to get down,” and he did, Seto said.
He saw one person lying on the ground, being attended to by two to three passers-by who were holding his head still.
A woman was sitting on the curb with blood coming down her face, and another woman walked past him with blood on her face.
Includes reporting from AFP and Associated Press.
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The Mosque incident in Dublin has managed for the most part to have stayed out of mainstream media.
There’s trouble brewing from within paradise.
@Maurice: If it was a Catholic organisation it would be given 160 legs. (€). They have magnified bad behaviour by 2% of sick evil men to damage 100% of Catholic clergy. They are scared to deal with Muslims.
@Maurice: I heard about it all on national broadcasting media. Seems mainstream to me. I wouldn’t view the internal issues of the Islamic Cultural Centre necessarily mainstream or broad-reaching anyway.
@Maurice: I hear Clonskeagh mosque has closed ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. A designated terrorist organisation
@Pelagius Asturias: *close
@Pelagius Asturias: You heard correctly!
Why is Palestine now not covered people are still being slaughtered.
And burning down of churches in Ireland over the past week.
@Be Lucky: One article about two nuclear armed neighbours with a long history of deep animosity (possibly posturing for war), and you’re here whingeing about palestine and churches. One article. Ffs.
@Be Lucky: always the same field, always the same seed. Antisemitism and hatred. Not all of Ireland needs to plant the same seed.
@Be Lucky: To hell with the Palestinian and Israeli hate fest, They’re as bad as each other. Why don’t ye head on over there and do something about it.
Muslims, nothing but trouble
@Pete Hickey: Spent this week’s disability benefit on fags and cans already, have we? Get a life. And a job.
@Pete Hickey: Zoom out. People avoiding logic and reason. You know it well. Many here do.
@Pete Hickey: Bigots also.
@Jack Hayes: Durka Durka Muhammad Jihad
@Wendy Arbour aka Luas Vuitton – Dub Drag Queen: How much do drag queens earn? Are you coming to grips with the truth that you’re really a man not a woman! Common sense has prevailed.
@Wendy Arbour aka Luas Vuitton – Dub Drag Queen: Get to grips with the fact you’re a man not a woman (reality).
I wonder how many new Irish will be arguing with other over this
@Tom L: you don’t know any Irish people, do you?
@Wendy Arbour aka Luas Vuitton – Dub Drag Queen: No such thing anymore, they’re Wokies now and you are the spokesman eh
@Tom L: ‘Wokies’. LOL What a developmentally stunted human you are.
@Tom L: Rather be woke than be a fascist
@Wendy Arbour aka Luas Vuitton – Dub Drag Queen: do you practice being an arrogant dosser
Muslims a great bunch of lads
Two nuclear powers falling out with each other, what could possibly go wrong?
Vance and his missus will sort that out.
You know what. Keep your sordid little wars over there in Asia and eastern Europe and the middle east and don’t involve any of the rest of us peace loving people in them. I for one am sick of it all. War is hell.
@Eamon: the irony of a Leeds fan talking about peace
@You Cant Be Serious: You can’t be serious.
We’re “going of the rails on a crazy train”
Pakistan is a rogue nation that should never have been created.
@Hunt Ley: you can thank the Brits for that
Everyone get their KI tablets ready.
And brine curing your household pets.
Well im up for India..Pakkkkkis are dirt..
@Pol O Nuanain: We have both in Ireland. They are well used to poverty, mayhem and overpopulation. Something that will slowly but surely make its way into Irish society.
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