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The Philadelphia Inquirer
The Philadelphia Inquirer
National
Rob Tornoe and Rita Giordano

Four dead, two missing in Pa. explosion

A house explosion killed four people in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, on Thursday evening, officials said, and two people remained unaccounted for as officials searched through debris from the destroyed home.

Pottstown Borough Manager Justin Keller said officials responded to a home at Washington Street and Butler Avenue in Pottstown just after 8 p.m. Thursday and found that it had been destroyed in an explosion.

Officials found four people dead, Keller said, and transported two others to area hospitals. Two more people were potentially still missing.

Debris was strewn around the area, according to photos of the scene. The residential neighborhood is a few blocks away from Pottstown High School.

It was not clear Thursday evening what had caused the explosion or how many homes had been damaged. Keller declined to take questions from reporters gathered near the scene and said officials would next provide an update Friday afternoon.

Residents on the scene reported hearing the loud noise and feeling the explosion, and others took to social media to describe the blast. It “felt like a sumo wrestler jumped and fell over in our kitchen,” one man wrote on Twitter.

Other residents told television news reporters at the scene that they also felt the explosion blocks away.

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