An explosion at a nursing home just outside Philadelphia collapsed part of the building and has left at least two people dead, and five others unaccounted for. The exact number of those injured and trapped inside has yet to be announced, authorities said.
The electric company Peco said in a statement that crews responded to reports of a gas odor at the site around 2pm. “While crews were on site, an explosion occurred at the facility,” the statement said. “PECO crews shut off natural gas and electric service to the facility to ensure the safety of first responders and local residents.”
A plume of black smoke rose from Silver Lake healthcare center in Bristol Township as emergency responders across the region gathered there.
Police for Upper Makefield Township posted on social media that it was a “mass casualty incident” and warned people to avoid the area in Bristol, about 25 miles (40km) north-east of Philadelphia.
County officials said they received the report of an explosion at approximately 2.17pm and said a portion of the building was reported to have collapsed. Ruth Miller, a Pennsylvania emergency management agency spokesperson, said her agency had been informed that people were trapped inside.
“I saw smoke and I saw car after car after car was a fire truck or ambulance from all over the city, from all over,” said the state representative Tina Davis, whose district includes the facility and who approached the scene in her car.
The cause of the explosion was unclear.
Willie Tye, who lives about a block away, said he was sitting at home watching a basketball game on TV when he heard a “loud kaboom”.
“I thought an airplane or something came and fell on my house,” Tye said.
He got up to go look and saw “fire everywhere” and people escaping the building. The explosion looked like it happened in the kitchen area of the nursing home, he said. Tye said some of the people who live or work there didn’t make it out.
“Just got to keep praying for them,” Tye said.
Nils Hagen-Frederiksen, press secretary at the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, said first responders and emergency management officials were describing it as a gas explosion, but that won’t be confirmed until his agency can examine the scene up close.
Musuline Watson, who said she was a certified nursing assistant at the facility, told WPVI-TV/ABC 6 that, over the weekend, she and others there smelled gas, but “there was no heat in the room, so we didn’t take it to be anything”.
Davis said there was talk of using a nearby school as a temporary evacuation area.
Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro said in a social media post that he had been briefed on the incident. “The scene is still active, and folks nearby should follow the direction of local authorities. Please join Lori and me in praying for the Bristol community,” Shapiro said.
Jim Morgan, president of the Bristol Township school board, said district buses would take people from the nursing home to a reunification center at Truman high school. He said officials were working on setting up beds and providing water and other needs to residents. As of 4pm no one had showed up at the school, Morgan said.
“It’s just so sad – it’s that hopeful time of year. This is just something that is sad for everybody and the families and the workers that are there. I hope there’s positive results from this. We don’t know at this point,” Davis said.
According to Medicare.gov, the 174-bed facility underwent a standard fire safety inspection in September 2024, during which no citations were issued. But Medicare’s overall rating of the facility is listed as “much below average”, with poor ratings for health inspections in particular.
