The grim search for survivors continued Thursday morning following a deadly gas explosion Wednesday that collapsed two buildings where residents complained of smelling gas for weeks, killing seven people.
Dozens more were injured and several are still missing as authorities searched the wreckage with cadaver dogs, sources said.
Rescuers on Thursday morning pulled an unidentified man’s body from the mountain of debris, bringing the total confirmed dead to seven – four women and three men.
Sixty-eight were injured and five were still unaccounted for as of 10:45 a.m.
Tenants had long complained about gas odors in and around the now-flattened buildings at 1644 and 1646 Park Ave. between East 116th and 117th streets, where the thunderous blast at 9:30 a.m. jolted residents for blocks.
A plume of thick, black smoke filled the sky, and debris rained down on the streets. There was also a water-main break at the scene, and sources said a sinkhole, which could have been a factor in the blast, was discovered.
“I saw the building fall. It just fell down. I thought it was a bomb,” said African Market owner Magatte Samb, who was walking to work. “I felt like I was going to die.”
Mayor Bill de Blasio appeared at the blast site shortly after 9 a.m. – wearing an FDNY jacket with his name on it – and huddled with Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, FDNY Commissioner Sal Cassano, Chief Medical Examiner Barbara Sampson and other rescuers.
FDNY Chief of Department Edward Kilduff gave the group a progress report.
“We have probably about two-and-a-half floors of debris, so we have it now down to about one, one-and-a-half floors. We have teams that are searching both sides,” Kilduff said.
“The victims have primarily been found on the left center side about 20 feet in. The latest victim about an hour and a half ago was found on the right center side.”
De Blasio expressed concern for the rescuers, telling him, “You have to protect your guys,” and sympathizing with their grisly task.
“I can only imagine knowing that at any moment you might find a body, how difficult that is. I admire the work you guys do. I really do. It’s not easy. Thank God you do. Thank God you do it,” the mayor said.
In the chaotic aftermath:
■ Law-enforcement sources identified one of the dead as single mom Griselde Camacho, a peace officer at Hunter College out sick with asthma. A second victim was later identified as 67-year-old dental assistant Carmen Tanco, an active church member who traveled to Third World countries to provide dental services. A third victim was identified as 21-year-old Rosaura Hernandez, sources said.
■ Just after midnight, a fourth body was pulled from the rubble. The victim was not immediately identified.
■ The injured ranged in age from 3 months to 79 years. They included a 15-year-old boy in critical but stable condition after surgery at Harlem Hospital for internal injuries and burns.
■ City building records showed that 1644 Park Ave. had 120 feet of new gas piping installed last June for a fifth-floor stove, while 1646 has an open violation stemming from a 2008 complaint that revealed cracks in the rear wall. Neither building had any active construction permits.
■ About 100 residents were evacuated from several surrounding buildings, with many relocating to an American Red Cross shelter set up at nearby PS 57. The Buildings Department said none of the structures it evacuated for the FDNY had sustained structural damage.
■ Metro-North Railroad service to Grand Central was shut down for five hours after the Park Avenue trestle got showered with wreckage from the flattened buildings. Trains were later running slowly through the area to keep vibrations from destabilizing any other buildings.
Trains are restricted Thursday to a max speed of 45 mph past the site of the blast. Normally, they can go up to 60 mph in that area. There have been 6-10 minute delays on about 50 trains this morning.
■ Shock waves from the collapse of the buildings registered on seismographs maintained by Columbia University — about 0.3 on the Richter scale.
Quande Thomas, 20, who lives next door to the blast site, said gas odors regularly permeated the neighborhood since work started on a new building nearby.
Said his sister, 23-year-old Keema Thomas, “For the past two years, we’ve been smelling gas in the building. And police from the 25th Precinct would come and evacuate it sometimes.
“They’ll say, ‘Yeah, we smell gas,’ or whatever the case is, but then they’d let us back in 10, 15 minutes later. And they’d say it’s fine. But we’ve definitely been smelling gas for a while now.
“If they’d dug a little deeper and found the leak, this could have been avoided,” Quande added.
Sarah Borrero, 58, who lived on the second floor of 1646 Park Ave., said she smelled gas early Wednesday morning.
“I left today for work at 6 a.m., and it smelled like gas in the hallway. I thought I might have left the stove on, but it wasn’t on,” Borrero said. “We’ve had the smell before, and it wasn’t that bad, so I didn’t take it that serious. I just went to work.”
Con Ed officials said they received a complaint about a gas smell from a resident at 1652 Park Ave., at the rear of the blast site, at 9:13 a.m., and a crew was en route when the buildings blew up.
The officials also said that if other, earlier complaints had been made to 311, both it and the FDNY would have been notified — and neither was.
Records show that Con Ed workers responded to a call of a small gas leak at 1644 Park Ave. in May 2013.
The block was last surveyed on Feb. 28, and no problems were detected, Foppiano said.
In 1988, Con Ed did a repair on that block for a hub connection but said it was not for a safety issue.
Meanwhile, Rep. Charles Rangel (D-Harlem) said he spoke to relatives of some of the victims last night at PS 57.
He defended the comment Thursday, saying “Some people didn’t think so, but that’s what I thought.”
He also described a heartbreaking scene at the school, where small children were playing, seemingly unaware of the tragedy.
“God made little children so they don’t know the tragedies. They were playing and having fun. It’s a sad thing, you can’t describe the pain they feel, the fear that they have.”
Rangel rushed back to harlem from Washington Wednesday night, and said he would be returning to the capitol later today.
“I plan to go back today to see what I can do,” he said.
De Blasio insisted that the explosion came without warning, calling it a “tragedy of the worst kind, because there was no indication in time to save people.
“From what we know now, the only indication of danger came about 15 minutes earlier, when a gas leak was reported to Con Edison,” de Blasio said at a news conference Wednesday afternoon.
The National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates major pipeline failures, said it would conduct an intensive probe to find out when people started complaining about the smell of gas.
“We will be looking at Con Ed’s call logs to see when the first calls started coming in,” said the NTSB’s Robert Sumwalt.