Industrial Accident Reportedly Causes Explosion Near Chabad House
An explosion near the Chabad House in Santa Monica, Calif., apparently was caused by an industrial accident, according to reports.
Firefighters told local reporters that someone, apparently trying to remove a large pipe that was stuck in concrete, mixed together products that created pressure and an explosion near the Chabad center Thursday morning. A pipe-like device was propelled into a home behind the Chabad center. No injuries were reported.
Officials are calling it an industrial accident and are interviewing the person responsible.
Police evacuated several blocks surrounding the downtown Chabad center to investigate. Nearly 100 people were evacuated, including worshipers at the Chabad House who finished their prayers outside.
The Chabad director took the center’s Torah scrolls with him when he was evacuated, Chabad.org reported.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
