BALTIMORE — A vehicle exploded at a parking garage in the Fells Point area on Wednesday, injuring two people, according to authorities.
The explosion happened when a driver started his vehicle inside a five-story garage in the 800 block of South Caroline Street, according to Baltimore City Fire Department spokeswoman Blair Adams.
The driver had been parked on the third floor of the garage and the explosion that rocked his vehicle was large enough to damage part of the garage and some of the vehicles inside of it, she said.
“It exploded to the point where it blew out glass windows in the garage as well as some cracks and indentation into the cement,” Adams said.
Following the explosion, firefighters began evacuating all the businesses and homes within a one-mile radius of the parking garage, she said.
They are working together with the bomb squad to make sure they can remove the three tanks that were found inside what appears to be a van or an SUV, Adams said. It is unclear why the tanks were inside the vehicle, she said.
“We don’t know the exact chemical that is inside the tanks. It’s some sort of gas,” she said. “That’s all we have at this time. Exactly what was in there will be part of the investigation.”
Adams could not specify whether the van carrying the tanks was a commercial van.
“The explosion was so intense there’s not much we can make out from the vehicle,” she said. “So our investigators, once they’re able to get in and get the three tanks outside, then they’ll be able to further investigate the vehicle and the inside of the tanks.”
The fire department said two injuries were reported following the explosion. One of the injured parties was the driver of the vehicle and the other was a bystander, Adams said.
It is unclear if the bystander was inside the garage or outside of it when the explosion happened, according to authorities.
An ambulance took the driver of the vehicle to the hospital for treatment of minor injuries such as minor burns to the face and neck area and some lacerations, Adams said.
The cause of the explosion is under investigation.
One man who parked his car in the garage said he heard the explosion but thought it was related to construction work.
“My friend called me who works right down the street,” Ian Campbell of Fells Point said. “He said there was an explosion in the garage and I have a car in the garage, so I figured I’d come down here and check things out.”
Lisa Mitchell of Fells Point assumed that the reverberations from the explosion were related to construction in the area too.
“[We] didn’t know it was anything of this magnitude, that we were gonna walk out, and then it was like glass everywhere and the thousands of fire trucks and ambulance,” Mitchell said. “We weren’t prepared for all of that.”
By 6:25 p.m., people who parked on the first floor and second floor of the parking garage were allowed to enter it and remove their vehicles. But people with vehicles marked on the third, fourth, and fifth floors were still not allowed to enter and retrieve their property.