San Francisco Blast Injures Woman
A fiery explosion from an underground utility chamber rocked a section of downtown Friday, burning a woman and shattering store windows, authorities said.
Several blocks were evacuated around the Ralph Lauren store in the Crocker Galleria area. Firefighters quickly doused a flaming awning.
A crew from Pacific Gas & Electric Co. was not immediately able to determine the cause of the blast in its electrical vault because a bomb squad was investigating, company spokesman Paul Moreno said. He said there was no indication of a gas leak.
"The explosion did displace manhole covers — two round steel ones — and it also displaced a concrete cover as well," Moreno said.
Tom Demartini, a construction worker who was sitting in his truck outside the store, said he saw the sidewalk rise up six or seven inches.
"It sounded like a big poof, then there was a lot of smoke," Demartini said. "One woman looked like she was badly burned."
A woman was taken to the emergency room at St. Francis Hospital, where spokeswoman Linda Gillespie had no immediate comment on her condition. The woman's name was not released.
Scores of police officers and firefighters closed off the area, and evacuated office workers milled about in the aftermath.
Workers in a nearby office building said the blast shook their buildings and they thought it was an earthquake. One woman said the elevator in her building stopped.