By paNOW Staff

PHOTOS: House explosion at Regina Beach following natural gas leak

Dec 3, 2014 | 2:50 PM

A fire is dying down after a house exploded following a natural gas leak at Regina Beach Wednesday afternoon, causing damage to buildings throughout the community.

“It’s gone. It’s literally ground level from what I’ve heard. Basically all the walls gone. The roof is in the trees somewhere,” said Mark Obershaw, who owns the home that blew up.

SaskEnergy says there was a natural gas leak after the ground shifted. Crews are looking for any other leaks in the community and will remain in the town overnight.

“We did find an underground leak,” said Dave Burdeniuk of SaskEnergy.

“We shut gas off to all surrounding homes and businesses.”

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Burdeniuk says if you sense natural gas, which smells like rotten eggs, you can call SaskEnergy 24 hours a day at 1-888-7000-GAS (427).

The Town of Regina Beach confirmed the gas explosion beside the Post Office at the corner of 1st Street and 2nd Avenue. There are no reports of injuries.

The call came in to RCMP around 2:30 p.m. Police are in the preliminary stages of the investigation. They are telling people to stay away from the area because it may not be safe yet.

Obershaw said his family lives in Regina and recently completed seven years of renovations on their cottage. He’s able to look at the positive.

“I’m just glad no one’s hurt. That’s the main thing. Buildings can be replaced. It’s gone now, so rebuild it and just go from there,” said Obershaw.

Karen May was at home about three blocks away having her lunch when the blast hit. At first, she thought a large truck had collided with her house.

She works at a hardware store where fixtures came out of the ceiling and paint cans were thrown off shelves after the explosion. She says two families whose homes were affected are at that store.

“Where else are they gonna go?” said May.

Judy Forster works about a block away at the Forster Realty office and says they sure heard, and felt it in the lunch room.

“We heard a big boom and we didn’t know what the heck was going on and then all of a sudden our ceiling came down,” she said.

She said everything is still a little bit chaotic as emergency crews respond the to explosion. Windows and doors are smashed in on multiple buildings in the area.

“Everything shook! We thought it was an earthquake. We thought,’Hey, we’ve never had one of those here’,” she said.

Jaime Herman was in a home two blocks away when she heard a loud bang.

“I almost thought somebody ran into the house,” she said.

She went outside and heard someone yelling a house exploded and there’s still heavy smoke billowing from the scene.

“There’s insulation halfway across town,” she described.

Smoke can also be seen from across the valley near Craven. Katlyn Stefan on Twitter said it shook her house.

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