June 22 -- An explosion leveled a duplex on the Near East Side and left three people hospitalized Friday morning.
The blast was reported before 8:30 a.m. on North 20th Street between Fabron Avenue and Atcheson Street.
The explosion remains under investigation, but firefighters believe it was a caused by natural gas, Columbus Division of Fire Chief Kevin O'Connor told reporters. Representatives of Columbia Gas were on the scene Friday morning helping firefighters contain a gas leak and investigate the cause.
"On arrival there was very little fire that was quickly contained," O'Connor said.
Two people were in the building when it exploded, he said. They were pulled from the rubble and taken to Ohio State University's Wexner Medical Center in critical condition.
A third person was also taken to the Wexner Center with undisclosed injuries.
The Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority owns the building, O'Connor said. Neighborhood residents said CMHA was renovating the duplex and several surrounding buildings for residents to return.
"(CMHA) said they walked the property on Monday and the property was supposed to be vacant," O'Connor said. "They had problems with scrap metal being stolen out of the building so they were keeping pretty good watch on it."
Investigators are still working to determine why the two victims were inside the building, he said.
The blast destroyed the duplex and damaged two adjacent apartment buildings. Several houses on the block had shattered windows.
The foundation and a front gate were all that was left of the duplex and debris was strewn about in the street in front of it. A tree was also knocked over and lay in the middle of the road as firefighters scoured the wreckage.
Columbus resident Mark Anthony was driving through the neighborhood on his way to work at the AAA Bilt Wel Construction Co. when he and two co-workers heard the explosion. They didn't see it, but it rocked their van and they saw a mushroom cloud rising from the duplex.
He and his co-workers helped police and firefighters pull a man and woman out of the wreckage.
"We found the girl first," Anthony said. "She was covered in debris except for her face and she was wailing."
The man was found a short time later and both of them were taken away in ambulances, he said.
The blast knocked a woman near the corner of North 20th and Atcheson out of her wheelchair, said John, a neighborhood resident who asked to only be identified by his first name.
"It shattered the windows on a pharmacy" blocks away from the duplex, he said.
The woman pulled from the wreckage "had a lot of lacerations on her face," he said.
St. Dominic Roman Catholic Church, which is across the street from the duplex, sustained moderate damage to the windows on the rectory and the main church building, the Rev. Joshua Wagner said on Facebook. He said around 9 a.m. that crews from the diocese were on the way to the church to secure the building.
No one from the parish was hurt, Wagner said.
Fire crews closed North 20th Street between Atcheson Street and Fabron Avenue while they sifted through the rubble.
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