A New Jersey home was obliterated Tuesday night in an explosion so powerful, it was felt at least 15 miles away.
No one was inside the home at 33 Grumm Road in Hardyston when it erupted around 11 p.m., prompting a massive emergency response, the Hardyston Township Volunteer Fire Department said on Facebook.
The explosion damaged the windows of an adjacent home and caused structural damage to Wallkill Valley Regional High School across the street. The school was closed Wednesday.
Residents across the Garden State said they could feel the impact — with some calling 911 thinking there had been an earthquake.
“The Hardyston/Hamburg house explosion last night was so loud in Oak Ridge Morris County that we thought that part of our own house, in the midst of major work, had collapsed! That boom was about 15 miles away! Amazing,” tweeted Robin Wilson-Glover, a managing producer at NJ Advance Media.
Local residents in the rural town in Sussex County said it sounded like a “bomb went off.”
“Our whole house shook,” Hamburg resident Dan Schenker told NorthJersey.com. “My wife Caity ran outside and saw fiberglass insulation floating down onto our road, so we figured whatever happened was pretty close.”
The modern two-story home was built in 2012 as part of a new development called Brecia Farms, according to a listing on Zillow.com.
Photos of the aftermath show the property reduced to a heap of rubble.
Authorities believe a propane tank under the property could be to blame but the cause of the blast remains under investigation.
With Post wires
