Gas Explosion

A natural gas explosion ripped apart a vacant Westminster house yesterday afternoon, severely damaging dozens of neighboring homes and spreading debris more than a mile away.No one was injured, officials said.Nearly 100 families were evacuated after the 1:18 p.m. blast, and at least 50 homes were damaged -- 20 of them seriously enough to be declared uninhabitable by county housing inspectors.Residents were not allowed to return to their homes last night.The Autumn Ridge neighborhood was strewn with garage doors, shattered windows, ripped insulation and aluminum siding, while all that was left of the house at 90 Sunshine Way was a smoldering pile of wood, brick and aluminum.

WEATHER: Blustery, with wind chills making temperatures rarely feel warmer than the mid-20s.  TRAFFIC:   Check our traffic updates for this morning's issues. TOP NEWS Hopkins patients come forward as investigation into secret taping continues : Fearing that a Johns Hopkins gynecologist secretly videotaped and photographed them, nearly 100 women contacted police Tuesday, and some potential victims reached out to private attorneys contemplating legal action.

Liability for a 1995 natural gas explosion that ripped apart a vacant Westminster house and severely damaged dozens of neighboring homes has been settled by lawyers for 10 defendants and 36 plaintiffs, court officials said yesterday.The pretrial agreement was accepted Oct. 8 by Donald J. Gilmore, a retired Circuit Court judge called upon to hear the complex civil lawsuit, according to Carroll County Circuit Court records. The agreement means that a lengthy jury trial that was scheduled to begin Monday was avoided.

WANZHOU, China - Rescue workers searched for survivors as well as more bodies yesterday in the wake of a poisonous cloud from a natural gas explosion that left what state news media described as a "death zone." More than 40,000 people were evacuated, and witnesses described fields containing the lifeless bodies of people and animals. State television showed evacuees crowding into emergency shelters throughout this mountainous section of southwestern China. In makeshift clinics, doctors - many from surrounding cities - were treating villagers who lived near the explosion site for poisoning, burns and respiratory problems.

A gas explosion rocked an Oakland Mills apartment building yesterday morning, triggering a blaze that left at least six families homeless.The fire slightly injured two people and caused property damage of at least $400,000, fire officials said."

After paying out more than $1.2 million in claims to 40 homeowners in a Westminster neighborhood that was damaged a natural gas explosion last winter, 16 insurance companies ++ want their money back from those they say caused the blast.The insurers of homes in Autumn Ridge filed a lawsuit in Carroll Circuit Court last week claiming that the Jan. 19 explosion -- which destroyed a vacant house and damaged more than 60 others -- was caused by negligence on the part of a Howard County company that was digging a trench for Prestige Cable Television of Maryland Inc.In addition to Reid Oliver, the subcontractor who was digging the trench that morning, and Prestige, the suit names as a defendant Maryland Underground Inc., the contractor hired by Prestige to lay television cable.

Investigators seeking to pinpoint the cause of a natural gas explosion Monday that killed an elderly Irvington woman focused their attention yesterday on the gas stove that was found on top of her when rescue workers dug her body from the rubble.hTC "The stove is what we're interested in," said John A. Metzger, a spokesman for Baltimore Gas and Electric Co.But investigators from both the utility and the Fire Department said the mound of debris that was once a two-story, brick row house at 321 Martingale Ave. was too unsteady for them to work in safely until some of the rubble was removed or shored up.The blast that killed Marian Wilderson, 85, also injured two other residents of the quiet neighborhood and scattered debris over a block away.

A two-alarm fire early today destroyed a vacant apartment building in the Cecil county town of Perryville.State Deputy Fire Marshal Robert Thomas said the fire, which caused an estimated $150,000 damage, was intentionally set."The building was being renovated and no one was living there at the time," Mr. Thomas said.The fire was reported about 1:30 a.m. at the three-story, frame building that occupies 301 to 317 Broad St.Mr. Thomas said 45 firefighters from Cecil and Harford counties battled the fire.

WEATHER: Blustery, with wind chills making temperatures rarely feel warmer than the mid-20s.  TRAFFIC:   Check our traffic updates for this morning's issues. TOP NEWS Hopkins patients come forward as investigation into secret taping continues : Fearing that a Johns Hopkins gynecologist secretly videotaped and photographed them, nearly 100 women contacted police Tuesday, and some potential victims reached out to private attorneys contemplating legal action.

A natural gas explosion ripped apart a vacant Westminster house yesterday afternoon, severely damaging dozens of neighboring homes and spreading debris more than a mile away.No one was injured, officials said.Nearly 100 families were evacuated after the 1:18 p.m. blast, and at least 50 homes were damaged -- 20 of them seriously enough to be declared uninhabitable by county housing inspectors.Residents were not allowed to return to their homes last night.The Autumn Ridge neighborhood was strewn with garage doors, shattered windows, ripped insulation and aluminum siding, while all that was left of the house at 90 Sunshine Way was a smoldering pile of wood, brick and aluminum.

An Essex man was seriously injured and his house nearly destroyed Sunday night when leaking gas ignited. The explosion occurred just after 11 p.m., a few hours after another gas leak in the Lower Eastern Shore town of Snow Hill killed a utility worker and injured 17 people. Matthew Wedderin, 47, was taken by ambulance to Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center with first- and second-degree burns to his face, hands and back. Wedderin was the sole occupant of the house in the 500 block of Welbrook Road at the time of the explosion.

SNOW HILL - Residents of this 360-year-old river town awoke yesterday to the surreal scene of police and fire investigators in dense fog, searching through a crumpled wood-frame house for the cause of a propane explosion that killed a utility worker and injured 17 people, including 13 volunteer firefighters. While investigators worked to pin down a cause, the community came together to support the injured, mourn the death of Ignatius D. Saienni, and look over the site of the explosion that demolished the home of Sadie Dryden, 87. For Dryden, the first whiff of trouble come about 5 p.m. Sunday.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - The bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963 is one of the most infamous events in civil rights history, and yet yesterday, prosecutors presented two expert witnesses to testify that the explosion that killed four black girls was caused by a bomb. Prosecutors said they needed two FBI agents to verify that a bomb - rather than an accident such as a gas explosion - caused the deaths of the girls as part of their case charging former Ku Klux Klansman Thomas Blanton Jr., 62, with murder.

A 72-year-old Anne Arundel County woman died last night and two others were injured in an apparent propane explosion that leveled the family's house in the 300 block of Poplar Road in Millersville. Anne Arundel County fire officials said Betty Sawyer was thrown from the split-level house - the roof lay in the middle of the debris - into the front yard about 7:10 p.m. last night and was pronounced dead at the scene. Also injured in the blast were Sawyer's husband, Robert, 74, and the couple's 40-year-old son, Thomas Nelson Sawyer - known as Nelson - who family members said was doing work in the basement when the explosion occurred.

Firefighters responded to a report of a gas leak and explosion at Carrolltown Center in Eldersburg yesterday. The initial report said an odor of propane was detected inside and outside the Kmart garage at the shopping mall. One employee was overcome by the odor and taken to the hospital, officials said. The employee was not identified. Firefighters using devices that detect gas leaks found no evidence of propane and no evidence of an explosion, said Lt. Ken Fischer of Sykesville-Freedom District Fire Department.

The general manager of a Jessup warehouse suffered minor burns yesterday morning after a natural gas leak caused two small explosions, Howard County fire officials said.Workers at L & M Produce Co. in the 7300 block of Assateague Drive called the fire department about 8: 56 to report that natural gas had been leaking for about five minutes and caused an explosion in one of the company's produce coolers. The cooler leads to a loading dock outside.Fire officials said that about 10 minutes after firefighters arrived at 9: 06 a.m., there was a second explosion in the refrigerator.

Carroll County Commissioner W. Benjamin Brown said Friday that he wants the county to study whether its agencies could help prevent a gas explosion like the one that wrecked a Westminster neighborhood last month."

Bernard Coleman was looking for a pocketbook and a strong box yesterday morning, but all he came up with were cans of beans.Searching through the rubble of what had been home to him, his fiancee and their two children, Coleman piled the canned goods together with pieces of recovered clothing the morning after an ZTC explosion ripped through the 5300 block of Ready Ave. in Govans."

A powerful explosion blew off the front of a brick apartment building in Baynesville yesterday evening, leaving 10 residents homeless and three people slightly injured.The explosion, which may have been caused by a natural gas leak, forced the evacuation of 22 people from neighboring apartments and closed a key Baltimore County intersection during rush hour.Fire officials said no one was seriously injured in the blast that occurred shortly after 5 p.m. at Loch Bend Apartments in the 8700 block of Loch Bend Drive, a complex of two-story brick buildings.