Five people were seriously hurt, two of them critically, when a food truck exploded outside a coffee shop in a popular California shopping district on Saturday morning, according to reports.
The blast shortly after 9:15 a.m. on Greenleaf Avenue in the city of Whittier, about 20 miles east of Los Angeles, rattled nearby stores and sent locals scrambling, the Los Angeles Times reported.
According to the outlet, the five injured were food truck workers who were treated at the scene then transported to local hospitals, while two others suffered moderate injuries and one was hit with a minor injury.
County fire dispatcher Martin Rangel told the Times it was likely a propane tank explosion.
Police cordoned off the trendy neighborhood known as Uptown Whittier for several hours after the blast but reopened the block by midday — as authorities investigate the casue of the mishap.
“It’s a pretty rare event,” Matt Geller, who heads the Southern California Mobile Food Vendors Association, said of the food truck explosion. But, he added, “we have a lot of old trucks.”
A gofundme.com page has been created for the victims with a goal of $10,000.
More than 2,700 food trucks and trailers do business in Los Angeles County, Geller told the Times.
Fire officials said most food truck fires are related to leaky or faulty propane tanks — and while rare such blasts are not unheard of in the US.
On July 1, 2014, a mother and her teen daughter were killed when a food truck erupted in flames in Philadelphia, severely burning three others and injuring several more people.
Four years later, the incident led to a massive $160 million settlement, WPVI-TV reported at the time.
