8 injured in Chicago apartment building explosion
Chicago (PTI): Eight people were rushed to hospitals after being injured when an explosion Tuesday tore through the top floor of a Chicago apartment building, officials said.
The explosion at the 36-unit, four-story apartment building in the South Austin neighbourhood occurred at about 9 am on Tuesday.
Chicago Fire Department Deputy Chief Marc Ferman told reporters a few hours later that the department had finished searching for potential victims and was confident that nobody remained trapped inside the building, of which much of the top floor had collapsed.
He said, “Technical crews had shored up the upper floors to allow firefighters to search to make sure we didn't leave any victims underneath any of the debris.”
The cause of the blast had not yet been determined.
Seven of the injured were in the building on the city's West Side, when the explosion occurred, and one apparently was in a building across the street, Ferman said. Three of the people who were hurt had serious to critical injuries, the department said.
Photographs and video posted on the Chicago Fire Department's Twitter page showed that much of the top floor was destroyed. Scores of bricks and other debris had fallen onto the street, crushing at least one car and seriously damaging two others.
Several residents said they were home when the explosion rocked the building.
“I was asleep, and all of a sudden there was a loud booming,” said Lawrence Lewis, who was asleep at the time, told WGN television. “I woke up to my windows gone, my front door blown open. I just saw smoke, and I ran out of the house. I was asleep. I'm shook up right now.”
Otis Maning, who lives across the street, told the Chicago Sun-Times that he was on his couch watching television, “When all of a sudden I hear, 'Boom! My heart almost shot out of my body...I saw windows busted open, I saw debris," he added.
Chicago police bomb squad and agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also responded to the explosion.
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Sculptor Ram Sutar, designer of Statue of Unity, passes away
New Delhi (PTI): Noted sculptor Ram Sutar, known for designing the world's tallest statue — Statue of Unity — in Gujarat, passed away late on Wednesday night at his Noida residence, his son said.
He was 100 and ailing with age-related illnesses.
"It is with profound grief that we inform you of the passing of my father Shri Ram Vanji Sutar on 17th December midnight at our residence," his son Anil Sutar said in a note shared with the press on Thursday.
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Born in a humble family in Gondur village under the Dhule district of present-day Maharashtra on February 19, 1925, Sutar is known to have been drawn to sculpting from his childhood.
A gold medallist from JJ School of Art and Architecture, Mumbai, Sutar, has to his credit a long list of achievements.
The iconic statues of Mahatma Gandhi seated in a meditating pose and of Chhatrapati Shivaji riding a horse on the Parliament premises rank among his finest creations.
The Statue of Unity honours Sardar Patel, country's first deputy prime minister and home minister.
Sutar was honoured with the Padma Shri in 1999 and the Padma Bhushan in 2016.
Recently, Sutar was conferred with the Maharashtra Bhushan Puraskar, the state's highest award.
