Metro

House explodes on LI, injuring 21

A massive explosion obliterated an empty house on Long Island this morning, blowing out the windows of neighborhing homes, sending 21 people to area hospitals and rocketting shoes, bedding and an umbrella into the top branches of neighboring trees.

The 10:40 a.m. blast at 43 Fourth St. in the Suffolk County hamlet of Brentwood was likely caused by a ruptured gas line but investigators have not ruled out arson. Miraculously, no one was killed.

“I was in bed and it felt like an earthquake. I thought a plane hit the house,” said Mushin Kiryaman, a neighbor who lives across the street and was home with his wife and children. “All the shelves and windows in my house broke and collapsed. We were luncky we were sleeping or we would have been hurt badly.”

Witnesses said a tower of flame shot skyward right after the blast, and gas could be heard hissing from a ruptured line.

Twenty-one opeople were rushed to two area hospitals with injuries caused by flying glass and debris that were not life threatening.

Suffolk County police and Brentwood firefighters are on the scene investigating.

“I was seven miles away in Islip and I heard it,” said George Hauck, spokesman for the Brentwood Ambulance squad. “When I got there it was just total devastation.”

Investigators used thermal imaging cameras and sound equipment to search the rubble and make sure no one was in the house.

Police sources said crews turned off all gas and electric service in a one-block radius until utility crews determine it’s safe to turn it back on.

The modest ranch style home has a market value of about $327, 600. It was most recently owned by Heriberto and Donna Soto, land records show, but neighbors and police sources said the Sotos had moved out and transferred ownership to Millenium Homes, a real estate investment company that was renovating the house to sell it.

Roxana Pagan, 39, who lives nearby with her husband and three kids, said her home was damaged by the blast.

“One of my windows caved in, the front door is completely jammed,” she said. “We can’t use our front door, we have had to use the side door.”