A deadly explosion that shook neighbors awake in the tight-knit community of Southgate early Thursday destroyed one house, leaving almost nothing left standing, and set another on fire.
The two residents of the exploded home — a 37-year-old woman and a 38-year-old man — were badly burned and taken to Detroit Receiving Hospital, police said. The woman was trapped under rubble, and the man was blown into the front yard.
Police said the woman, who appeared to have a broken leg, died at the hospital.
“There are blocks-worth of debris,” Southgate Police Det. Sgt. Nathan Mosczynski said from the scene explaining that the blast is being investigated as a gas leak. “We have a lot of clean up.”
But, police said, more people could have been harmed had the blast gone off hours later.
The exploded home, news reporters pointed out, is not far from a school bus stop.
It was unclear whether there were pets in the home.
WDIV-TV (Channel 4), which arrived on scene as firefighters were extinguishing flames, reported and Southgate fire officials confirmed that the home on Edison and Burns streets exploded with a loud boom just before 6 a.m., blowing out neighbors’ windows.
Panning across the area where the blast occurred, the Channel 4 newscaster noted firefighters sprayed water into what appeared to have been the house’s basement. Then, he added, “you’d have no idea there was a home there.”
DTE Energy, officials said, supplied the gas to the home, which was later shut off.
The utility offered its sympathies to the dead, injured and their loved ones, and urged “everyone to learn the steps they should take to help ensure the safe use of natural gas in their homes and understand their role in keeping natural gas safe.”
The explosion, which police and fire officials as well as DTE are investigating, scattered debris across the street and as far as two blocks away. It was unclear if it was a gas leak, what caused it, and whether it was reported.
DTE said it had no reports of a leak before the explosion.
The Detroit explosion comes just days after a gas leak in a 12-unit apartment building ignited, rocking a west side Detroit community and injuring a dozen people, including six children.
DTE said it would have taken a “significant amount” of gas in the apartment explosion to set off such a powerful blast, and that a leak should have been detectable by its odor, which is added and often described as a “rotten egg” smell.
In the Southgate explosion, WDIV interviewed a neighbor who said the blast shook him awake, even blocks away. He said there was a loud noise, which sounded like thunder, and saw flames and then the scattered debris.
Contact Frank Witsil: 313-222-5022 or fwitsil@freepress.com.
This story was updated with new information.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Southgate home explosion leaves 1 dead, another injured, scatters debris for blocks
Reporting by Frank Witsil, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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