BUSHLAND, Texas — A natural-gas pipeline exploded in the Texas Panhandle on Thursday, shaking homes, melting window blinds and shooting flames hundreds of feet into the air, authorities said.
Three people were injured in the blast, which occurred at 1 a.m. near Amarillo. They were taken to a hospital with burns, said Potter County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Roger Short.
“My home is about 20 miles away, and I could see the flames from my home,” Short said. “You could hear the roar of the flames 20 miles away.”
Firefighters were able to contain most of the flames by 5:30 a.m., though small grass fires continued to burn, Short said. Nearby residents were evacuated, he said.
One house was destroyed and several others were damaged in Bushland, about 15 miles west of Amarillo, he said.
“The heat onto the homes, it did a lot of damage. You could see blinds inside the homes that were melted. . . . It was very hot,” Short said.
One of those injured was in satisfactory condition at an Amarillo hospital, a spokeswoman there said. Another was treated and released, and the third was transferred to a burn center at a Lubbock hospital, officials said.
Investigators are probing the cause of the explosion.
