John Scene News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

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 they did gas prior to the explosion. that would jive with what we have been hearing now with the con ed...

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 let's 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 person. the scene in the area, very, very smokey. large numbers of rescue personnel and firefighters on ...

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 we've 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 can't get through quickly. >> it is difficult. what you are looking at there right now is the elevated railway of metro north, closed with traffic both ways. some of the explosion landed on the tracks. it also makes it difficult ...

>> 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 through the building looking for people who might be trapped inside. we have no word on what they found ...

Piano store, some other businesses. and something residential above that. the other building is a hispanic evangelical church. it's 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 know for sure simply gone. two deaths at this point to report so far. much, much more reporting to...