LINCOLN COUNTY, Ky. (WLEX) —
One person is dead and multiple others are injured after a thunderous gas explosion in Kentucky that sent flames hundreds of feet into the air and sparked an evacuation of nearby residents, according to officials.
Officials said the gas line exploded about 2 a.m. in the Moreland community near the Boyle and Lincoln County line.
Officials tell our partners at LEX 18 that others were injured.
Emergency officials said the cause of the explosion is under investigation.
The intensity and scale of the fireball shocked local residents.
“Got into my truck, was going up to my girlfriend’s house and seen what looked like an atomic bomb going off, basically,” said Jerry Sinkhorn. “Seen a big cloud of dust go up and could hear the thrust off of it. I knew what it was. It was a gas line, ’cause I’ve heard when the last one wnet off up there at the gas plant.”
Officials evacuated residents in a nearby mobile home park.
“It woke us up and it was just a big roar and it was fire going up into the sky as far as you could see,” said Sue Routin. “Our windows were shaking really bad, and our doors and the ground, you could hear the ground just moving and tumbling and rolling. And then we got to feeling the heat from the fire, so we got in our vehicle and took off to get away from it.
“We thought, he actually thought it could’ve been an airplane crash, because the rolling was really loud and it was just so bright it lit up the whole, it lit up everything around us.”
Lincoln County Emergency Management officials said a shelter has been opened at a nearby church for evacuated residents.
Smoke from the blaze could be seen as far as Louisville.
Officials said the gas line had been shut off.
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