Seaside Heights, NJ – The cause of the Saturday explosion that left one person hospitalized was related to a natural gas leak from inside the residence, authorities said.
Emergency crews responded to the explosion and fire on Sumner Avenue around 10:10 a.m. and extinguished the blaze, according to the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office. A 26-year-old woman was on the second floor of the apartment she rented at the time of the explosion and a worker was doing renovations on the first floor.
The woman was taken to Toms River Community Medical Center where she was treated for minor injuries and burns, the prosecutor’s office said. The worker was not injured.
After the blast, neighbors described the explosion and said that it sounded “like a dump truck slamming into a brick wall.” Fire Chief William Rumbolo also said it knocked out sidewalls.
The location of the leak and what caused the gas to ignite has not yet been determined, the prosecutor’s office said.
The residence was deemed uninhabitable and the investigation is ongoing, authorities said.
This is the third house explosion in three weeks in Ocean County. In Stafford Township, 15 people were injured in February when a natural gas explosion ripped through a home. And on March 2, a man was badly burned in a home explosion in Point Pleasant Beach.