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NEW YORK (AP) — Emergency workers are still painstakingly looking for signs of two missing people in the rubble of three New York City apartment buildings leveled in an apparent gas explosion, though authorities acknowledge the chances of finding them are slim.
Meanwhile, investigators are working to piece together exactly what caused the blast Thursday that injured 22 people in Manhattan's East Village. Mayor Bill de Blasio says it's possible that someone improperly tapped a gas line amid ongoing plumbing and gas work in one of the destroyed buildings.
A city official says utility workers from Con Ed found an unauthorized gas pipe in the building last August after getting a report of a gas smell. The official says the pipe was gone when Con Ed checked again 10 days later.
As of Saturday, no one else was believed to be missing related to the explosion, which sparked a raging blaze that took hundreds of firefighters to quell.
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