JOHANNESBURG — A suspected underground gasoline explosion throughout Johannesburg’s night rush hour ripped open roads and flipped greater than 20 vehicles in South Africa’s largest metropolis Wednesday, injuring at the very least 9 individuals, authorities stated.
The 9 had been despatched to the hospital with accidents that authorities stated weren’t life threatening. Other individuals had been evacuated from the world attributable to fears of a second explosion or that multi-story buildings in a downtown part of town that has turn out to be rundown in locations would possibly collapse.
“Buildings are in danger of collapsing,” Panyaza Lesufi, the premier of Gauteng province, the place Johannesburg is positioned, stated. “The damage is extensive.”
Authorities estimated that an space protecting 5 metropolis blocks was broken. Lesufi stated he counted 23 overturned automobiles. Huge cracks and holes appeared in the midst of roads, some so massive that automobiles slid down into them.
Lesufi stated that whereas gasoline was suspected as the reason for the explosion on downtown Johannesburg’s busy Bree Street, it was not clear if it got here from a leak within the metropolis’s underground pipes or from one other, undetermined supply.
Johannesburg gasoline provider Egoli Gas stated in a press release it was unlikely that one in every of its pipelines was accountable. The firm stated there was no interruption in its provide within the space and its investigators had discovered no leaks.
The 5 p.m. explosion occurred as many individuals had been gathering on the road to catch a minibus taxi house, one in every of South Africa’s commonest commuting strategies in cities. Several minibus taxis and different vehicles had been left on their sides or flipped over, with some mendacity on high of one other automobile.
Eyewitnesses stated individuals had been already inside a few of the minibuses when the explosion threw them into the air. In the speedy moments after the blast, individuals had been seen working as smoke poured out of a crack within the street.
One man, who didn’t give his identify, instructed tv station eNCA that he was in his automobile when he heard “a big sound. The next thing, I was in the air and my car was overturning,” he stated. He stated he was shaken however unharmed.
Emergency crews had been looking by way of a few of the mangled, overturned automobiles and close by buildings, and Lesufi stated there might be extra injured individuals. He stated it was stunning however a aid that no deaths had been reported.
Lesufi stated rescue staff had been apprehensive concerning the quantity of gasoline that had leaked out as a definite scent of gasoline hung within the space.
“This place is still dangerous,” he stated.
Earlier this month, a poisonous nitrate gasoline leak killed 17 individuals, together with at the very least three kids, in a casual settlement on the outskirts of Johannesburg. The leak was blamed on an unlawful gold processing operation within the settlement.
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