Four Canadian firefighters and two police officers were sent to the hospital following a gas explosion that leveled a house and damaged others late Wednesday.
Just after 10:30 a.m. London, Ontario, fire crews responded to a person trapped in a vehicle after the car had apparently been traveling the wrong way on a one-way street before slamming into a house in the city's Old East Village neighborhood, The London Free Press reports. But when firefighters arrived at the scene, monitors they were wearing detected natural gas, and they discovered a gas line had been ruptured in the crash.
“Everybody backs out. And at that point, they’re going to start evacuating homes on either side and that’s when the explosion happened," London Deputy Fire Chief Jack Burt told the Free Press.
The explosion, which happened just before 11 p.m., destroyed one house and severely damaged nine others. No one was inside the house that was destroyed, and around 100 homes were evacuated.
By the end of the emergency, four firefighters were injured and taken to the hospital, one in serious but stable condition. Two police officers also were hurt, as well as a civilian, who suffered minor injuries, according to the Free Press.
