Terrible blast at Texas hotel leaves 21 injured

A dreadful explosion at a historic Texas hotel in Fort Worth on Monday blew out windows, littered downtown streets with large sections of debris from the building and injured 21 people, authorities said.

One person was in critical condition and four were seriously injured, the police said in an evening update. Fourteen people were transported to a hospital, and one person went to a hospital on their own, the police said.

Earlier, the authorities had said that one person was missing, but they noted later that the person had been found.

Initially, the authorities said that it was unclear what caused the explosion at the Sandman Signature hotel, which occurred about 3:30 p.m., though Craig Trojacek, a spokesman for the Fort Worth Fire Department, said at a news conference that there was “a smell of gas in the area.”

“We were getting reports that it had started in the restaurant,” Mr. Trojacek said, adding that a restaurant at the hotel was under construction. “We’re not 100 percent sure that that’s where it actually started at this point.”

Later, the Fort Worth Fire Department said on social media that the explosion had most “likely” been caused by a gas leak, but that officials were waiting to confirm that.

A spokeswoman for Atmos Energy, which provides natural gas to North Texas, said the company was looking into the explosion.

Three of those injured were employees at Musume, a contemporary Asian restaurant located inside the Sandman, Josh Babb, the co-founder of the restaurant said on Instagram. “All of us at Musume are devastated,” he said, noting that the restaurant was closed at the time and that there were no customers inside. The three employees were receiving medical treatment and were in stable condition, Mr. Babb said.

Video footage and images from the scene showed substantial damage to the ground floor of the hotel, a new facility housed in a historic century-old building, and debris littered across the street.

Christian Alvarez, 25, who works at the Pink Cobra, a tattoo parlor two blocks from the hotel, said he felt the shop shake on Monday afternoon. Mr. Alvarez said he and two other co-workers walked outside and saw smoke pluming down the street.

The hotel occupies one of Fort Worth’s most historically significant buildings. Built in 1920, the 20-story W.T. Waggoner Building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. The register describes it as a “physical manifestation of the crucial role played by Fort Worth in the national oil boom.”

The building housed the offices of several oil exploration firms and a bank over the years, according to the National Register.

(With inputs from agencies)