The Latest: Nearby residents says pipeline blast shook homes

JUNCTION CITY, Ky. (AP) — The Latest on the natural gas pipeline rupture and explosion in Kentucky (all times local):

10:50 a.m.

People who live near a gas pipeline that exploded in central Kentucky say they were awakened by noise and shaking homes.

The blast killed one person and sent five to the hospital

Naomi Hayes told The Associated Press that she lives within a mile of the scene and that the initial blast shook her home. She said when she and her husband looked out the window “it was so bright that it was like daylight outside.”

She said they went outside to see huge flames and a fire that roared “like a monster.”

Another nearby resident, Sue Routin, told WLEX-TV that she was awakened by a big roar. She described hearing the ground moving and said the flames went up into the sky “as far as you could see.”

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9 a.m.

Lincoln County Emergency Management Director Don Gilliam said the fires are out from a gas line explosion early Thursday that killed a person and sent five others to a hospital.  

He says six structures were impacted and some destroyed altogether by the flames. The fire reached about 300 feet in the air and could be seen throughout Lincoln County.

Gilliam said he doesn’t believe there are any critical injuries among those hospitalized.

Crews are still looking for five to seven people and are asking anyone who lives in the area and hasn’t been accounted for to check in at New Hope Baptist Church in Stanford, which is set up as a shelter.

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6:45 a.m.

A regional gas pipeline ruptured early Thursday in Kentucky, causing a massive explosion that killed 1 person, hospitalized five others, destroyed railroad tracks and forced the evacuation of a nearby mobile home park, authorities said.

The explosion was so huge that it showed up on radar, according to a tweet from WKYT-TV meteorologist Chris Bailey.

County Emergency Management Director Don Gilliam said the flames reached about 300 feet in the air and could be seen throughout Lincoln County.

Residents of Indian Camp trailer park in the Moreland community were evacuated to the New Hope Baptist Church in Stanford.

Gilliam urged people gathering for a multistate yard sale to stay away as tanker trucks work to put out fires.

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