Explosion at Florida shopping center leaves 21 people injured: ‘It just looks like an apocalypse’

Everyone is looking for answers after an explosion at a shopping center in Florida, officials said Saturday.


Photo: Alexandra Fuentes/3rd.Optics/Instagram

Twenty-one people were injured, which includes two seriously injured, in the blast in Plantation, just outside of Fort Lauderdale, said Joel Gordon, Battalion Chief for Plantation Fire.

Video shows windows blown out of an LA Fitness while a neighboring building was totally demolished, with debris scattered in all directions.

No one knows the cause of the explosion at this time.


Photo: WLPG

There are ruptured gas lines found in the rubble but it has not been confirmed if the explosion was caused by a gas leak, officials said.

The gas leaking from those ruptured lines has been stopped, officials confirmed.

The origin of the blast, which went off just before 11:30 a.m. local time, is also not known.


Photo: WLPG

Thirteen people have gone to the Westside Regional Medical Center emergency room, a hospital official told ABC News.

No one was killed in the explosion, police said.

Guillermo Villa was across the street about to charge his Tesla SUV when he heard the blast go off.

Villa said he saw light and then a cloud of debris before “I started seeing pieces of the building falling on my head.”

“I went underneath my car because there was so much debris flying,” he told ABC News. “It was like raining pieces of roof, wall, bricks.”

That’s when he saw people running and shouting.

“I was afraid,” Villa said. “I thought it was a terrorist attack at the beginning.”


Photo: WLPG

But Villa said he’s grateful he escaped without a scratch.

“It was so close … I am blessed,” he said. “I cannot believe nothing happened to me.”


Photo: WLPG

One witness told ABC Miami affiliate WPLG that a huge flash of light “lit up the whole sky.”

“It was loud,” the witness said. “This surpassed fireworks … your ears were ringing.

“It just looks like an apocalypse,” she added.

All businesses in the area are shut down until fire crews deem it safe to return, Plantation police said.

Rescue crews and dogs searched the rubble and did not find any trapped victims, officials said.


Photo: WLPG

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