Blast rocks Boston area

DANVERS, MASS. — A chemical plant outside Boston blew up Wednesday -- with a roar so thunderous that people thought it was an earthquake or a plane crash -- destroying two dozen homes in the tightly packed neighborhood but causing only minor injuries.

The fiery blast flattened the CAI Inc. factory, a manufacturer of solvents and inks, around 3 a.m., knocking buildings off their foundations, shredding roofs and shattering windows in neighboring Salem. The explosion could be heard more than 20 miles away.

“I was in bed and then next thing I knew, I was on my feet. I saw the flames and grabbed my clothes. My first thought was that an airplane crashed,” said Paul O’Donnell, an aircraft mechanic, “but then I thought it was too early for that.”

Nearly 90 homes were damaged, with about 25 wrecked beyond repair, but only 10 of the more than 300 people believed to be in the neighborhood were hurt, and their injuries were minor, authorities said. The plant was empty at the time.

“The miracle is you have the equivalent of a 2,000-pound bomb going off in a residential neighborhood at night when everybody is home, and no one’s dead and no one is seriously injured,” Gov. Mitt Romney said.

Officials said it could take weeks to determine the cause of the explosion.

Most of the damaged homes were in view of the plant, and some stood right across the street. The neighborhood is among the oldest in the city, dating to the 1700s, with a mixture of businesses and homes because it was settled before modern zoning rules.

Bakery owner Luis Ferreira was working overnight making bread and pies for Thanksgiving customers when “all of the sudden -- boom -- and everything gets dark.”

Through the flour and dust, employees called out to each other.

“We had no idea what happened at the time. We just got out of there,” said Ferreira, who suffered scrapes on his face and wore a bandage on his temple.

CAI Treasurer Paul Sartorelli said in a statement Wednesday that company officials didn’t know what caused the accident, and said the company underwent safety upgrades in 2001.

In one condominium across the nearby Crane River, the blast was so strong it bowed a woman’s bedroom windows, sucked her curtains out and then returned the unbroken glass and frames to their original position -- with the curtain tops attached to the rod inside but the curtain bottoms fluttering outside in the breeze.