Death toll at 7 from collapse of 2 buildings in New York

Firefighters found four more bodies in the rubble of two collapsed buildings in New York, bringing the death toll to seven, authorities said Thursday. More than 70 people were injured Wednesday when two five-story East Harlem buildings were leveled by a gas explosion that hurtled debris for blocks, WNBC-TV reported. Crews brought in heavy equipment to dig through debris Thursday, searching for more victims as firefighters battled flare-ups. Columbia University said the force of the explosion was so strong that it registered on the Richter scale at just under 0.5. Smoke wafted into Central Park and could be seen miles away in midtown Manhattan. The explosion blew out windows of nearby apartment buildings and forced evacuations. The Red Cross said nearly 70 people, half of them children, spent the night at a Salvation Army facility. The blast hurled debris onto elevated tracks of the Metro-North commuter line above Park Avenue, forcing a service shutdown in both directions. The only indication of any problem before the explosion at 9:31 a.m. Wednesday morning was a call to Con Edison from a woman in a nearby building reporting a strong odor of gas just minutes before the explosion, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and utility officials said. But it was too late. "This is a tragedy of the worst kind because there was no indication in time to save people," de Blasio said. Hospitals received 74 injured people. Two FBI agents who were driving through the area when the buildings exploded were among the injured, but their injuries were not life-threatening, the FBI said. "It sounded like a bomb. That's what it really sounded like," Trey Dey, who was working in a basement when the buildings exploded, told WNBC. Crews were trying to repair a sinkhole that developed from a water main break -- likely caused by the explosion -- so heavy equipment could reach the scene, fire officials said. The Department of Environmental Protection was monitoring air quality, WNBC said. The National Transportation Safety Board said Wednesday it was sending a team to join the investigation. The Buildings Department said one of the collapsed buildings had six units and the other had nine. One of the buildings, which had no violations on record, had work done in June for 120 feet of gas piping, WNBC said. The other building had one violation from 2008 concerning vertical cracks in the rear of the building. The city said a fine was paid but it was not clear whether the condition was corrected, WNBC said. In the months before the explosion, residents of the two buildings said they repeatedly complained about a strong odor of gas, the New York Daily News reported. Tenants said they made calls as recently as Wednesday morning. "You came into the building, the gas smell was overwhelming," said Ruben Borrero, 32, a second-floor tenant in one of the leveled buildings. "It was hard to get from the front door to the apartment, that's how bad the smell was. We had to open up windows to air it out."