20 injured when Pizza Place explodes



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(Newser)

Twenty people were injured after the explosion of a pizzeria in a South Florida mall on Saturday, police said. The blast sent debris flying along a busy Plantation Road, west of Fort Lauderdale, in Broward County, reports the AP. The restaurant was destroyed and nearby shops were damaged. "We thought it was a thunderclap at first, then we felt the building shaking and things started to fall in. I looked out and I almost felt like that the world is ending, "says Alex Carver, who works in a grocery store in front of the blast. "It was crazy, man … it was crazy." The Plantation Fire Department called it a gas explosion.

The explosion dispersed large pieces of concrete up to 50 meters and sent pieces of metal up to 100 meters into the street. Carver said two of his colleagues' cars had been destroyed. The explosion demolished the building, leaving only part of its metal frame. He blasted the windows of a popular fitness club next door. Dozens of firefighters responded to the call and could be seen rummaging through rubble with dogs sniffing through debris. There were no known casualties immediately after the blast, police officer Chavez Grant said. Of the 20 wounded, two were seriously injured. The fire and police departments of the plantation said on Twitter that the street was closed to traffic. The fire department called it a gas explosion with "several patients".

(Read more stories of explosion.)

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