Gas-line tapping a theory in NYC apartment blast

Fire officials stand Friday in the windows of a building adjacent to a collapsed building in the East Village area of New York.
Fire officials stand Friday in the windows of a building adjacent to a collapsed building in the East Village area of New York.

NEW YORK -- Someone may have improperly tapped a gas line before an explosion that leveled three apartment buildings and injured nearly two dozen people, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Friday as firefighters soaked the still-smoldering buildings and police searched for at least two missing people.

"There is a possibility here that the gas line was inappropriately accessed internally" by people in one of the destroyed buildings, but officials need to get access to its basement to explore it further, de Blasio said.

The number of people injured in Thursday's blast rose to 22, with four critically injured, officials said.

Police were searching for at least two people: Nicholas Figueroa, a bowling alley worker who had been on a date at a sushi restaurant in the building where the destruction was centered, and Moises Lucon, a worker there. Authorities also were exploring whether a third person was unaccounted for, Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said.

Before Thursday's explosion, inspectors with utility Consolidated Edison had been to the East Village building to check on ongoing work to upgrade gas service. The utility said the work didn't pass inspection, so gas wasn't introduced to the line, and inspectors gave instructions and left.

The utility said inspectors didn't smell gas.

But 15 minutes later, the sushi restaurant owner smelled gas and called the landlord, who called a general contractor, Boyce said. No one called 911 or Consolidated Edison, de Blasio said.

The contractor, Dilber Kukic, and the owner's son went into the basement and opened a door, and then the explosion happened, burning their faces, Boyce said.

The building had an existing gas line intended to serve the sushi restaurant. The work underway was to put in a bigger line to serve the entire building, Consolidated Edison President Craig Ivey said. As for whether the apartments were getting gas from the existing line, "That's a great question," he said.

De Blasio wouldn't say more about why officials believe the existing gas line might have been tapped. But the building had a history: Consolidated Edison found an unauthorized gas pipe there in August after getting a report of a gas smell, according to a city official briefed on the information.

The official wasn't authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The pipe was gone when the utility checked again 10 days later, the official said.

The building's managing agent didn't immediately respond to messages seeking comment Friday.

The blast echoed through Manhattan's arts community, destroying Sopranos actress Drea de Matteo's apartment -- she posted photos on Instagram of "a hole where my NYC home of the last 22 years once stood" -- and spurring the cancellation of five performances of the show Stomp, which is playing at a theater near the site.

The contractor, Kukic, who's facing unrelated bribery charges, declined through his lawyer to comment on the circumstances surrounding the explosion.

City records show Kukic got a permit last June for plumbing, flooring, removing partition walls and other work at the building.

Kukic was treated and released from a hospital, and "his thoughts are with the people who are injured," his lawyer, Mark Bederow, said.

In a 50-person bribery case authorities unveiled last month, Kukic is accused of paying $600 to an undercover investigator posing as a housing inspector to get violations dismissed at two upper Manhattan properties. He has pleaded innocent.

Information for this article was contributed by Colleen Long, Mike Balsamo, Kiley Armstrong, Mark Kennedy and Frank Eltman of The Associated Press.

A Section on 03/28/2015

Upcoming Events