An explosion destroyed a house and killed one person, injured another and forced an evacuation of an entire neighborhood.
The house on Continental Court near Leonardine Avenue in New's South River neighborhood Jersey exploded around 7 p.m. Thursday, authorities said.
Arriving officials found two men with serious injuries.
According to Mayor Peter Guindi, the house was 'flattened'.
“It was a horrific scene,” Guindi said MyCentralJersey.com.
'The windows of houses and cars in the area were blown out. The garage doors were pushed inwards. We didn't know if anyone was in the house.
“All the houses were evacuated as soon as we got here.”
The firework was quickly extinguished. Neighbors were all safely evacuated and no other injuries were reported.
Officials initially said two people had been killed.
Kevin Gilbert, 62, a resident of the community, was pronounced dead at the scene, according to South River Police Chief Mark Tinitigan and Middlesex County Prosecutor Yolanda Ciccone.
Another man was rushed to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital. His condition and identity were not immediately known.
In the aftermath of the explosion and fire, two portions of the roof remained intact on the ground and debris littered the lawn and concrete road.
“Suddenly, boom. I mean, boom, boom,” one neighbor said CBS News. “Like the whole house, we thought something had fallen on the house. We really did that.'
Another neighbor told the news station: 'This was so powerful it really shook the house. I really thought it was going to be another earthquake.'
The cause of the fire is still under investigation.
Anyone with information about the incident is asked to contact police.
The South River explosion occurred about a month and a half after a home in Crescent Township, Pennsylvania, exploded 'completely razed' by an explosion in which a man and a woman died. At least two other homes were damaged by the blast, which was felt in communities across the river.
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