Church Evacuated for Gas Leak

A church was forced to evacuate this morning due to a possible gas leak.

The church is located at 6945 Torresdale Ave. in the Tacony section of Philadelphia, only about a block from the major gas explosion that occurred Jan. 19. That explosion killed a utility worker and injured six others.

Philadelphia Gas Works received a phone call from the Philadelphia Fire Department at around 9 a.m. Sunday for an odor of gas at the church.

PGW was on the scene shortly thereafter, and the fire department evacuated the five people in the building as a precaution. Those people were later allowed back into the building and no other residents were evacuated.

Crews discovered a leak in a six-inch gas main. They were able to make a temporary repair.

A  main thoroughfare was also closed to traffic as a precaution, but has since been reopened.

The Jan. 19 explosion sent a 50-foot fireball into the sky, prompting dozens of evacuations and destroying nearby buildings and torching several vehicles. Nineteen-year-old Mark Keeley, a PGW employee, was killed in the blast.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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