A second body was found in the rubble of a partially collapsed school building in Minneapolis, Minnesota, after an explosion killed a school employee and injured several others, fire officials said.
The body was recovered at about 8pm on Wednesday at the Minnehaha Academy, and the medical examiner’s office is working to notify relatives, Minneapolis Fire Chief John Fruetel said.
The blast occurred in a utility as students were playing soccer and basketball at the private Christian school, which serves students from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade, fire and school officials said.
Photo: AP
Contractors were working on one of the campus buildings at the time of the blast, which investigators believe was caused by a natural gas explosion, Minneapolis Assistant Fire Chief Bryan Tyner said.
The explosion killed Ruth Berg, a receptionist for 17 years at the school who “welcomed everyone with a smile,” the school said in a statement.
John Carlson, a part-time janitor known for giving Dilly Bars to students, was reported missing. The 81-year-old attended the school as a child, sent his own children there, and was like a grandfather figure to students, school officials said.
At a news conference on Wednesday night, Fruetel did not specify whether Carlson’s body was the one located.
He added that crews would return yesterday morning to continue going through the debris.
Four people remained hospitalized late on Wednesday, including one in critical condition, at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, according to the hospital. Their names have not been released.
Victims treated from the blast suffered injuries ranging from head wounds and broken bones to cuts from debris, the hospital’s chief of emergency medicine Jim Miner said.
Aerial video footage of the school’s campus showed that part of a building was ripped apart, with wood splintered and bricks scattered about. Windows in other areas were blown out and shattered. Three people were rescued from the building’s roof shortly after the explosion and fire, Tyner said.
Paul Meskan, who lives across the street, said he was pulling weeds when the blast happened, and he quickly ran over to the school.
He and other people who rushed to help found a man pinned under the rubble, Meskan said.
“We just started digging,” Meskan said.
He said that after police and firefighters arrived “we kept digging, and gas was going. Fire was going. And it’s like, ‘we’re not going back until we get this guy out of here.’ And we got him out, and they got him on a stretcher.”
The Star Tribune reported that city records show that Master Mechanical was issued a permit on June 7 for “gas piping and hooking up meter” at the school’s address.
Ryan Larsen, a company official, released a statement saying the company was monitoring the situation and referred questions to the Minneapolis Fire Department.
Larsen would not confirm that company workers were on site, saying: “We are trying to figure it out.”
Master Mechanical has twice been cited for workplace violations in recent years, according to the newspaper.
Minnesota Occupational Safety and Health Administration spokeswoman Jenny O’Brien said that in 2010 there was a violation related to protecting an employee from falling, while in 2014, the company had paperwork violations.
At the time of Wednesday’s blast, as many as 10 students were playing basketball inside a gym at Minnehaha Academy, but were not near the explosion, said Sara Jacobson, the school’s executive director of institutional advancement. Jacobson also was in the building during the explosion.
“There was a very loud explosion, and ceiling tiles and windows and materials rained down on our heads,” she said. “And then soon as it was over, we made our way down a dark hallway to the exit as quickly as we could.”
WCCO-TV reported that hundreds of people gathered on Wednesday evening for a prayer vigil about a mile from the school.
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