2 dead, 2 missing after house explosion in Atlantic County

Two people were killed and two others were still missing after an explosion destroyed a home Thursday morning in Atlantic County, police said.

A 1-year-old girl and a 16-year-old girl suffered burns and other injuries in the blast and were taken to St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children in Philadelphia, said Matthew DeCesari, chief of the Franklin Township Police Department, during an evening news briefing.

First responders were searching the rubble for the remaining two people still missing, DeCesari said.

Since a mid-afternoon news briefing, first responders recovered two bodies from the rubble, he said, adding that he was unable to provide any identifying information about them. DeCesari did say that the four people initially reported missing included a 2½-year-old boy, a 3½-year-old girl, and two men, ages 73 and 52.

Shortly after 10:30 a.m., first responders were sent to a residential fire on the 300 block of Northwest Boulevard in Buena Borough, DeCesari said at the earlier news conference, Fox29 reported. Although Franklin Township is based in Gloucester County, its police department patrols Buena Borough.

Multiple area fire departments responded to the scene, as did the New Jersey State Police, and the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office, Office of Emergency Management, and county bomb squad. The lead investigators are the Franklin Township police and Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office.

The FBI and the ATF also are assisting with the investigation.

“We don’t have any indication right now of what the cause is. However, we are going to treat it as a crime scene until we determine what the cause is,” DeCesari said.

Several other houses on the block were damaged, and nearby residents were evacuated, he said.

“This is just something that’s very tragic. It’s a small community. Everybody seems to know each other. You know, when you have an incident like this, it really hits everyone,” DeCesari said.