A blast at an apartment block in Aurora, Colorado, over the weekend displaced nearly 400 residents from their homes and injured at least three people, authorities said.
The explosion was felt at an apartment building on East Alameda Avenue in the city, the Aurora fire department said on Saturday morning.
Two people were taken to hospital with non-life threatening injuries while the condition of a third person was unknown, CNN reported on Sunday.
It remains unclear what caused the blast, which authorities said resulted in “structural damage” to the Parkside Collective apartment building, managed by Holland Residential.
Authorities said, as of Saturday afternoon, that “heavy damage occurred as the result of an explosion to the west side of the structure.” An evacuation then took place and hundreds of residents were transferred to emergency shelter accommodation on Saturday evening, the fire department added.
“At this time the occupants of the building, between 300-400 residents, will be relocated with the assistance of Red Cross RideRTD to a nearby shelter location. Long term accommodations will be coordinated through Red Cross based on need,” said the department.
Fire officials said they were called to the scene “to reports of smoke conditions” when the blast took place, and that “on arrival, crews began searching for hazards when an explosion occurred”.
One resident told KUSA, a local news outlet, on Sunday: “The ground started to shake below the apartment building — at that point we decided to make our way outside.
Samuel Levy added: “We walked outside, we noticed some steam coming out of the concrete coming in through the separation in the concrete.”
Another resident, Joe Bham, said “all the debris just fell off” when the explosion happened and said: “It was just crazy.”
It remains unclear when residents of the apartment building can return.
