Toronto house explosion leaves 1 dead
A deadly explosion levelled a house in Toronto on Monday afternoon, damaged at least a dozen other homes, and claimed at least one life.
Firefighters were called to an address on Port Royal Trail, near Brimley Road and Steeles Avenue East, at 4:25 p.m. ET.
The blast left emergency responders combing through rubble, looking for people who may have been trapped underneath.
A man was pulled out from the rubble and pronounced dead at the scene.
On Monday evening, Toronto police confirmed the identity of the deceased as Paul Zigomanis.
Images posted on social media showed debris strewn across the yards and roofs of nearby homes as well as on the road near the house that was turned into rubble.
Len Stadler, a Toronto Fire Service division commander, compared the scene to a war zone.
"For the one house in particular, it's completely demolished. There's nothing standing," he told reporters on Monday evening.
Emergency responders reported that there was a gas leak in the area of the explosion, but it was not immediately clear if it was related to the blast.
When Stadler spoke to reporters, he said it was too early to say what the cause was. It remains under investigation.
The people who were in the area at the time called it a loud and powerful blast.
Amy Wen tweeted a photo of some of the rubble that resulted from the explosion. She said that she felt it from north of Steeles Avenue.
Emily Thanh was driving past as the explosion occurred.
The blast took off a portion of the driver-side mirror off her car.
"I'm lucky that I'm OK," Thanh told CBC News.
John Zambri was also driving by the scene at about the same time. He said the noise from the explosion left his ears ringing more than 90 minutes later.
"I was just driving and then all of a sudden, I just heard 'boom' and then [saw] like a big cloud and then a whole bunch of stuff fell on the hood of my truck," he said on Monday evening.
Stadler said that utility crews, police officers and firefighters as well as fire investigators are at the scene, as they work to determine what happened.
"It's a team effort," he said.
Toronto police Insp. David Vickers told reporters there was no evidence to suggest the explosion was drug-related.
"There is no indication this is any sort of drug or meth lab," he said.
TTC buses on the 21 Brimley route are diverting in both directions, as a result of the explosion and the related investigation.
