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This scene. firefighters working every possible angle here. we have been told that the fire was mostly out. i have covered a lot of buildings that have gone down in this country and others and i will tell you, the remarkable feature of this, right now, is the smoke. smoke is simply everywhere around here and it is very, very thick. we did just get some information from one of our producers who says that investigators have been told by neighbors, investigators have been told by neighbors that the...

They just put out a statement saying that report of a gas odor at 1652 park avenue came at 9:13 from a resident. two con edison crews were dispatched at 9:15 and arrived just after the explosion. so lets say that again. at 9:13, con edison had reports of a gas odor. just a few doors down from where these buildings were at 1644. that building is now gone. the report of the odor was at 1652. that gives you a sense of what seems to be the cause of these two blasts that now killed at least one perso...

Essentially decimated. the other one no longer there as well. 1644 park avenue. we are essentially looking at the area between 116th and 117th on park avenue. one person has died so far. the challenge being, here, chris, as weve been talking about with this collapse of the building, there is a lot of rubble there that the people john scene, the first responders, they cant get through quickly. >> it is difficult. what you are looking at there right now is the elevated railway of metro north, clos...

>> rose arce has been up here walking around this disaster area. te tell me what you have seen. >> reporter: this is a witness. >> i think rose is having a hard time hearing me right now. there were two buildings affected again. one was a piano repair shop. the other was a spanish, christian church. there were apartments on temperature of both buildings. the building we know is gone was a five-story apartment building. we have been told a short while ago that firefighters were still combing thro...

Piano store, some other businesses. and something residential above that. the other building is a hispanic evangelical church. its tiny. it had some construction, they believe, something going on over the summer. during the summer, they had seen utility trucks, and believe there might have been work on those lines. >> reporter: in fact, we are getting some permits, cnn has in hand, showing some gas work in the building that has been simply destroyed right now. two buildings now decimated. one we...

It does seem as though there was some urgency to the situation. one fatality reported so far. police on the scene say the numbers are expected to change. well hold off on that. we are into the search for the missing jetliner. they have drastically expanded the search area they are looking at. they are more than doubling it. it is adding to the grief of the families of the 239 people on that flight. it is adding to the frustration of search crews. there is no clarification on the last known movem...

Drive by here. that is the type of truck with the type of personnel that would be looking at bodies. that could just be precautionary. you would imagine that those personnel would be dispatched to any situation like this. again, the situation as far as we know it right now, this large explosion taking place around 9:30, not long after con edison had received reports of a gas odor. we are going to take a break and tell you more from the scene when we come back. im beth... and im michelle. and we ...

Standing amid the debris. what is it like? >> reporter: just heartbreaking. you can see these two buildings have just collapsed into a pile of rubble. you would think this was a construction zone. there are individual bricks lying there, and there is a swarm of firefighters. i would say over a dozen firefighters that keep moving in on top of the pile, pulling out bricks, one by one. almost as if they were deconstructing like a pixie stick set. there is a plume of smoke from the center, very, ver...