Explosion Reported in Florida Shopping Center, Several Injured: Report

An apparent gas explosion at a shopping plaza in Plantation, Florida, injured several people on Saturday, authorities and local media reported.

The explosion happened Saturday morning at a shopping center in Plantation, west of Fort Lauderdale in Broward County. The blast sent large pieces of debris about 100 yards across the street.

#BREAKING: Massive explosion at the Fountains in Plantation. This video was sent to me by my own cousin who was inside @LAFitness when it happened. The explosion was across the street, and it still caused this much damage at the gym. He’s ok. @WPLGLocal10 pic.twitter.com/kdpg589EGa — Liane Morejon WPLG (@LianeWPLG) July 6, 2019

Video posted to Twitter showed the force of the blast scattered debris across a parking lot and blew out several windows at a nearby L.A. Fitness gym, sending patrons running for the exits.

BREAKING NEWS: Gas explosion reported at a shopping center in Plantation. There are multiple patients, Plantation Fire Rescue confirms. WPLG Local 10 စာစုတင်ရာတွင် အသုံးပြုမှု ၂၀၁၉၊ ဇူလိုင် ၆၊ စနေနေ့

The Plantation fire department said on Twitter that there were multiple patients being treated at the scene.

The authorities also announced on Twitter that the street was closed to traffic.

#BREAKING Gas explosion reported at The Fountains shopping center in Plantation, FL. pic.twitter.com/TxRd7Dh3TF — Parker Branton (@ParkerBranton) July 6, 2019

“Avoid the area of University Drive and Peter’s Road. Fire and PD are working an incident involving an explosion. Command post is set up on S. University Drive in the 800 block. Media Command post set up north of this location,” they tweeted.

Avoid the area of University Drive and Peter’s Road. Fire and PD are working an incident involving an explosion. Command post is set up on S. University Drive in the 800 block. Media Command post set up north of this location. — Plantation Police (@PlantationPD) July 6, 2019

The Sun-Sentinel newspaper reported that witnesses said a vacant restaurant appeared to be the source of the explosion.

The city of Plantation is about 6 miles west of Fort Lauderdale.

Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Leslie Adler

The Associated Press contributed to this report.