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Explosion triggers panic in New York

People flee as burst steam pipe brings back memories of 9/11

NEW YORK: A massive geyser of steam and debris that erupted through a midtown Manhattan street left asbestos in the dust that settled, but city officials said on Thursday that tests indicated the air was safe of the carcinogen.

Tests were continuing, but the city's Office of Emergency Management said in a statement that long-term health problems were ``unlikely.''

Streets around the crater left after the 83-year-old steam pipe ruptured near the Grand Central Terminal train station were still closed Thursday morning, creating near-gridlock. Streams of New Yorkers walked down Park Avenue, some wearing masks to filter the air.

The loud, rumbling eruption broke windows and rattled buildings as the broken pipe spewed steam, dirt and debris into the air. One woman died of an apparent heart attack, and about 30 people were injured, at least four seriously.

On Thursday, asbestos contamination was the main lingering health concern, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. Some of the pipes that pump steam beneath the city to heat and cool thousands of buildings are wrapped in asbestos, which can cause fatal lung disease with prolonged exposure.

Officials quickly ruled out terrorism after the blast, but for some witnesses, the explosion, dust and chaos were frighteningly reminiscent of the scene on Sept. 11, 2001 when terrorists flew into the World Trade Center, knocking the twin skyscrapers into heaps of rubble.

``We were scared to death. It sounded like a bomb hit or a bomb went off, just like 9/11. People were hysterical, crying, running down the street,'' said Karyn Easton, a customer at a salon a few blocks from the site of the blast. ``It was really surreal.''

City crews worked overnight to assess and repair the damage and to determine what happened.

Several major thoroughfares in the area remained closed. Most subway service was restored, though most of the trains continued to bypass Grand Central.

Residents in the area were to keep windows closed, and anyone exposed to the falling debris was instructed to wash carefully and isolate the clothing they were wearing in plastic bags. Eight air samples in the area around the explosion found no sign of asbestos, but six of 10 samples of debris and dust came back positive, the emergency-management agency said Thursday.

City engineers also warned that up to six feet surrounding the giant hole might be in danger of further collapse, and officials said workers would not be allowed into office buildings in a zone that covered several blocks. The Buildings Department determined late Wednesday that nearby buildings were structurally sound but some had suffered water damage and broken windows.

Officials said the pipe might have exploded under pressure caused by an infiltration of cold rainwater, or might have been damaged by a water main break.

Con Edison head Kevin Burke said the site had been inspected hours before the blast as part of a routine response to heavy rain that flooded parts of the city. He said crews had found nothing as they searched for steam rising from manhole covers or cracks in the street _ indications that pipes could be in jeopardy. The steam systems are normally inspected every six weeks.

It was rush hour Wednesday evening when the geyser erupted, generating a tremendous roar as 200-degree vapor sprayed as high as the top of the nearby Chrysler Building. Steam and dirt boiled from the ground for hours.

Many people were struck by falling chunks of asphalt or rock that had been blasted out of the ground. Mud covered some bystanders. A woman who was bleeding heavily was helped by police while a man lay on a stretcher in the street.

When the steam dispersed almost two hours later, a large crater was visible in the street and a red truck lay at the bottom of the hole. Two city buses and a small school bus sat abandoned and covered with grit in the middle of Lexington Avenue.

The steam pipes have ruptured before. In 1989, a steam pipe explosion near Gramercy Park killed three people and spewed loads of asbestos into the air _ a fact that Con Ed later admitted it concealed for days while residents were exposed.

That explosion was caused by a condition known as ``water hammer,'' in which water condenses in a closed section of pipe. The sudden mix of hot steam and cool water can cause pressure to skyrocket, bursting the pipe.

Authorities Thursday could not immediately account for how the most seriously wounded victims of the latest eruption were hurt. Police said the woman who died, identified as Lois Baumerich, 57, of Hawthorne, New Jersey, suffered cardiac arrest.

She and 15 other people were taken to Bellevue Hospital, where two seriously injured patients were being treated in a trauma unit, hospital spokesman Stephen Bohlen said. Two other people were in critical condition at New York Weill-Cornell Medical Center, said hospital spokeswoman Emily Berlanstein.

Among the injured were several firefighters and police Officer Robert Mirfield, who helped evacuate 75 people trapped in a nearby office building by cutting open a gate, authorities said. -- AP

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