AP, New York City
Investigators were combing through a New York City shipyard on Saturday trying to find the cause of a fire and an explosion that killed one person and injured more than 30 firefighters and other first responders.Authorities provided no major updates to the incident that occurred Friday afternoon in the Mariners Harbor neighborhood on the north shore of Staten Island. Besides investigators, some firefighters were at the site as a precaution Saturday, officials said.Firefighters were called to the shipyard about 3:30pm Friday on reports that there was a fire, heavy smoke and two workers trapped in a basement area, Fire Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore said. Less than an hour later, as firefighters and emergency medical personnel were working the scene, an explosion occurred, officials said.
Firefighters respond to an explosion at a shipyard in Staten Island on May 22 in New York.
One civilian died and another was wounded. Authorities said a fire marshal and a firefighter were seriously injured, while 29 firefighters had minor to moderate injuries and four emergency medical personnel had minor injuries. All were transported to area hospitals.“We got very lucky this day,” Bonsignore said at a news conference on Friday evening. “We got lucky in the sense that none of our people were killed. It’s unfortunate we had one fatality, and they did everything they could to get to that person.”
