tamron hall picks up our ongoing coverage. tamron? >> thanks very much, chris. we begin with the breaking news, fire still burning in the harlem section of upper manhattan with all the markings of an explosion. these are live images coming into msnbc. at least a portion of the large building completely collapsed there. debris has been scattered along nearby train tracks and what is now a five-alarm fire. nbc news has also learned that 16 people were taken to the hospital, four of them with what's being described as serious injuries. again, you're looking at two live vantage points of this scene that's been going on now for about an hour. joining me live on the phone is mitch abreu, who was working at a nearby barbershop when he heard the explosion. are you there? >> yes, i'm here. >> tell me what you're seeing right now. >> right now, a lot of police outside, k-9 units out here, i can see half the building.

this is really bad, everything's closing, and they were bringing a couple people out, putting them in the ambulance, having them on the way to the hospital, and it's really smokey out here. >> mitch, you were at work at a barbershop not far away. give me an idea how close you were to what we believe was the center of this explosion. >> i'm half a block away. right now i'm seeing the fire as we speak. i'm seeing the smoke as we speak, and right now i can see them pushing up the ladder a little bit more, trying to get a little more holes up there. i'm just here standing outside. >> mitch, tell me when you knew something had gone wrong over there, did you hear the explosion or did you feel it? >> i heard it and i felt it. >> were there other people inside the barbershop at the time? >> yeah, we were working. two of us were working and two of them were relaxing and they felt it and got, like, scared.

they ran outside. thought it was an earthquake or something going on. >> and when i'm looking at these pictures, as i mentioned, there is debris just everywhere. it's scattered what looks like for blocks there. >> yeah, there's broken glass from buildings, from windows, and the barbershop up the block, too, which is in connection with us, some of the light bulbs went off inside. it was a pretty big explosion. >> do you know what's housed inside that building? we know it's a residential building, but oftentimes in new york, like you're a barbershop, other businesses are on the ground level. tell me about that area since you go to work there every day. >> yeah, i didn't know really much about that building. >> okay, mitch, well, thank you very much. i really appreciate it. i'm happy you are safe and the people inside the shop with you at the time are safe, as well. let me go to ron allen. he is standing by.

i think ron made it close to the scene there. ron, what can you tell me you are seeing right now? >> reporter: i think the building you were asking that witness, that gentleman about, is either a church or a piano store of some sort on the ground floor is what residents of this area are telling us, and above it, as you were pointing out, it's an apartment building. we met a number of people in the crowd out here that are concerned about loved ones that live nearby. i was talking to a woman in tears and trying to get past the police lines, because she has some cousins who live in a building nearby and who she hopes had left for work already that morning, but she's not been able to reach them. there are scenes like that here on this corner being repeated all throughout the morning. there's still a lot of confusion about exactly what buildings have been damaged. there are people who have been evacuated from nearby buildings. just a lot of confusion still and i can still see now that the

first time since looking out, the firefighters are no longer putting water on the fire. perhaps -- i can't tell from my vantage point, but still a smokey scene and there's smoke billowing out over the neighborhood. a lot of people are protecting themselves from the smoke, which is kind of irritating if you're right close to it. >> ron, i think we can't stress enough to people who are watching, this startedre i look building with many other buildings and businesses in and around there, so while the number of people right now, the injuries, is at 16, the greater concern in addition to putting out this fire, if it is not completely out, the number one concern, there are people under this collapsed building or if other buildings nearby sustained damage and there could be people in those structures, as well. >> reporter: exactly, tamron. i've not heard any reports at the scene about whether there are people missing. it is an apartment building,

this happened early in the day and you're right, this is a very, very densely populated neighborhood. there's a train tracks that you probably see that run right by here, and as many of these neighborhoods, like this one, there's a deli i can see on the ground floor of a building nearby, there's a supermarket, there are all kinds of places where people would be at this time of day when this explosion happened, and the people i've talked to said they heard this a mile away, they felt it. >> that's what mitch is telling us, as well. the witness we just spoke with. let me put you on pause, i need to bring in pablo gutierrez from our telemundo affiliate in new york city. i understand you're right on the scene? >> yes, we've been here for about an hour. a little bit over an hour, and right now we're, you know, when we got to the scene, we were a little bit much closer, about half a block away from where we're at right now. when we got to the scene, we saw people visibly shaking, some of

them crying, some of them in the state of shock, they didn't know what was going on. now there are reports that some people are trapped inside the building and i have with me ray rosario. ray rosario came to the intersection of 116 and lexington just a few minutes ago. he is looking for one of his relatives. >> friends, friends. we have friends who live in the building, so, you know, close friends. >> can you tell me a little bit about what happened, how did you hear about this? >> i live only a block away, and we heard a loud boom and once we heard that boom, we smelled smoke, smelled like burnt rubber. once we went downstairs, windows were all shattered and once i looked down the corner, i saw smoke coming out. reminded me in world trade in a way, all the smoke was coming out, i couldn't see nothing. you know, right away, oh, my

god, we have families. >> you have a family member that lives in that building, who does he live with? >> his two kids and his wife. so i'm not going to give his name right now, but i also have friends that live there. >> have you tried to call them? >> yeah, yeah, when we were calling, it was ringing and after awhile, sounded, like, busy. so right now they are not giving us any information, not telling us what building it was, not letting us pass through. right now i just wait and hope, you know, right now my wife, she's very upset right now. you know, i can't -- right now, i think i'm going to keep her company right now. >> thank you so much for talking to us, ray, and i hope that you are able to find your family member and that he is okay. as you can see, this has been, you know, this is part of what we're living here on 116th. this is, for those of you that

know new york, this is an area that is a heavy immigrant area. there's a lot of people from mexico, a lot of people from south america, and the building in question is located on 116th and park. when we got here to the scene, we did see one person that was on the floor, he was put on stretchers. another one of them was in an ambulance, and we believe there was a third person there at the time. and it's just been, you know, very chaotic and very shocking for some of the residents in this area. as i can tell you, some of them said that they physically felt the ground shake when the explosion happened. >> absolutely. we talked with a witness who said the same thing, pablo. let me ask you regarding the chaos and the area around that's been closed off, this happened at 116th and park. but as we've noted, this is a densely populated area. we're talking about harlem, new

york city, where buildings are a stone's throw, if not less, from one another. what area has been closed off around you? >> reporter: well, right now i can tell you police have barricaded from lexington avenue onwards towards park, and as far as that's basically the area that we can see that it's been cordoned off. when we got here to the scene, one of the first news crews here. tl there were a couple of other reporters, our station is located not so far away from where this happened, and one of the persons that we talked to said that they did smell what appeared to be gas, and then immediately after, that's when they felt the explosion. he's a shop owner. he owns a barbershop down the street, and he said that his windows just completely rattled, you know, after this happened,

shortly after 9:00 this morning. >> okay, pablo, thank you very much. i want to note that i just got word via twitter that mayor de blasio is en route to east harlem to monitor the situation. again, this is a notification coming via twitter from the mayor's office, that mayor de blasio, the new mayor of new york, is en route to harlem to monitor the situation from the scene. and we have another witness with us, whose apartment was actually damaged in all of this. thank you for joining us. where are you now in proximity to all of this? >> i'm on 118th street and park avenue. i have to evacuate the building. >> so you're two blocks away. is this your apartment building? >> yes, that's my building, yes. >> were you inside? >> the building that collapsed, i'm in 1652, it's connected, they are the same building. >> tell me what happened this morning. >> well, i was on my way to work, i was using the bathroom, sitting on the toilet, then there was a big boom out of

nowhere, i thought it was an earthquake, metro north derailed. it lasted for so long, five or six minutes, the windows came tumbling, rumbling down. i have no windows, as i came off the toilet, i came down the hallway and the walls started coming down out of nowhere. i tried to run to the door to unlock myself and run down the stairs, that didn't happen. i couldn't get out of the apartment at all, so i took a knife and hacking at it, hacking at the lock. and then my next door neighbor kicked the door open. that's when we started running out the building. >> how many other people do you think were with you and that neighbor, was there a flood of people trying to get out? >> yes, there was. there was about 50 of us. i ran down the stairs. i didn't take the elevator, i remember from 9/11 never to do that. >> right. how many -- do you know how many apartments are in your building about? >> it's about 70 apartments. >> about 70 apartments there. >> yes, about 50 to 60, go

figure, go figure. >> right, a lot of people in the building, i imagine, at that time either getting ready to go to work. >> taking kids to school, yes. thank god i took my three kids to school already. >> okay. you've taken your kids to school and returned back to your home. >> yes, to get ready to work so i could get to my employment. >> a lot of people are describing it as sounding like an earthquake. >> yes, like an earthquake. first i thought it was a derailment of the metro north. then i thought it was an earthquake, because it lasted so long. first it was a boom, but everything was still rumbling, like five to six minutes. >> when you were running out of the building, some people have said that they feel like they smelled the odor of gas. >> yeah, it was. it was an odor of gas. once i ran out of the building, i was crying, so nervous, i didn't know what to do. seen dead bodies underneath the bridge and everything. >> hang on, there have been no

confirmation of any serious injuries or fatalities. >> that's a lie. that's not true. people were underneath the bridge. >> we're waiting for confirmation on that, but you're saying that, hang on, you're saying you saw people who were seriously injured underneath the bridge? >> ems was on their job, yes, they were helping those people. >> what floor were you on? >> fourth floor. >> so you and about 50 other people you're saying ran four flights down to safety. >> yes. >> from where you are right now, which is about two blocks, the building is at 116th. >> i'm not two blocks, one block opened. the explosion happened on 116th, i'm on 117th street. >> can you see if there's still a fire at this point? >> yes, there was a fire. of the building that was exploded. >> since you live in this building, had there been any history of problems regarding, you know, gas leaks, was there

any construction going on at the time in your building? >> no, no construction. no construction. i didn't smell any gas taking the kids to school or coming home, there was no smell of anything. >> okay. thank you so much for joining us. i'm glad that you and your children are out safely. we're trying to get some more information, but thank you very much and please, stay safe. on the phone with us is former fdny captain al fuentes. captain fuentes, thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you. >> let me get your assessment. first of all, to catch the people up just tuning in, the fire department said this is a five-alarm fire, the building is an occupied building, some residents unaccounted for. right now we've been able to get the number of 16 people injured at this time, 12 minor, four listed as, quote, more serious. we don't know if the fire is out, but what is your initial assessment here? >> you know, it's an ongoing situation. it's still developing, and in my

opinion, it's still a hazardous environment, because you can see the smoke still billowing from the adjacent structures, so to list this as stabilized, first responders, fire departments are going to be able to get in there and start making the searches, but i suspect they are in a process of starting to make that move. >> right, looking at about 200 firefighters at that scene and you have a dual track of issues here. one, getting that fire out. two, the concern of people who may be trapped, not only in that building, but if another structure very nearby was damaged, other people could be in that building, so how do you assess and deal with both of these ongoing crises? >> well, i'm sure the commander right now has been already assessing the adjacent structures from the explosion, but as far as the collapse, inside it's still unstable.

but they are unsure that being because of the time the explosion occurred, there's a good possibility, and they are going under the involvement that possibly people trapped and buried in there, so they are going to start making that decision as soon as it's available to them to get in there. >> captain, in addition to that, what we're learning right now, wnbc, our affiliate here, is confirming that one person has died in this explosion, so confirmation now of at least one fatality here. the pancake explosion, as you are describing, how difficult, and that is a pretty obvious question that it is a difficult situation, but you've got, again, firefighters who are trying to get in this building that is not secure to get people out who need help. we've seen, obviously, this at an epic level after 9/11, but we've seen other building

collapses, as well, from time to time in this city, so how do you assess and what are they doing? >> well, i'm sure there's some individuals in there, engineers that are on call to assess the stability of the surrounding buildings, the adjacent buildings and exposure to see their stability. any time you have an explosion of that significant force and it seems like it certainly was, i would go under the impression the buildings have been somewhat compromised, so they are going to go in there and assess as they move forward on that, but there is a good possibility, you have to go with the impression there's a possibility of the type of collapse, because it is a multiple dwelling. these are all tenements, seems they might have been renovated, but there could be some individuals still in there, and they are going to have to go in there and make that search.

>> thank you so much, captain. i hope we can keep you on standby. we need to take the audience to the state senator from that district, ranking member of the senate housing committee. as i've noted, mayor de blasio is arriving on the scene right now. what kind of information have you been able to receive, sir? >> first of all, i want to thank the fire department and the emergency services for their fine work. we have been able to ascertain through the hbv and city housing departments what side, the building had 60 open violations, including 31 a-violations, b-violations and c violations. >> what does that mean? >> some of the apartments had some disrepair, they had some bad conditions in there. as early as january of this year, the department of housing was able to -- the inspectors were able to inspect the building and found there were

carbon monoxide detectors missing there. that's important, because we're in some sense lucky it happened during the day. had it happened at night and we didn't have these carbon monoxide detectors, many of the tenants wouldn't have been warned what was going on. obviously, it was an explosion and whatever investigation that occurs in the future will determine what caused the explosion, but the building did have 60 open violations. >> okay, that leads to the logical question, how is this building allowed to have occupants there with 60 open violations? the carbon monoxide issue, certainly, many cases buildings are given fines, but 60 open violations? >> well, that's correct, and that's the problem. you know, and the city, you know, i think the htd has a program they go into specific neighborhoods and sort of fast track the repair of these violations and do a good job, but very often the landlords are negligent and no shows and don't

really want to make the repairs, so this is a big problem, and we have had these kind of collapses and explosions every so often in the city, particularly in manhattan, several of them, east and west side of manhattan, so this is a real problem. we must get to repair these violations early before this occurs, and we must also force landlords to make these repairs. >> for clarification, we don't know what caused the explosion and building to collapse, 200 firefighters on the scene. now we have one person, a confirmed fatality here. we don't know if these violations that you have noted, the 60 -- >> no knowledge. >> but whether this happened or not, obviously, it's of great concern and you have a working class neighborhood, many of these people barely in some cases able to afford to live in some of these buildings and to know this has 60 open violations of various degrees here is enough of a concern that you've noted it here.

>> that's correct. we don't know whether these violations had anything to do with the explosion, you know, we'll find out what was the cause of the explosion as we investigate this, but the fact of the matter is that families are living under these conditions in that building and far too many families across the city of new york are facing these same circumstances. >> thank you for your time. thank you, again, to our audience to catch you up on what's going on here, there are people unaccounted for. one of our colleagues from telemundo spoke with a gentleman whose family member was unaccounted for about 15 minutes ago during a live interview. others have talked about escaping the building with dozens of others, but the number of people inside the building at the time is unknown. this happening around 9:00 a.m. eastern time in new york city, so we're going to continue to follow this. we're going to take you to a quick break, but again at this point, one confirmed fatality, more than a dozen other injuries, various injuries. we're going to bring you the

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i should probably take this. live the regular life. phillips'. welcome back. we continue to follow the breaking news out of harlem in manhattan, new york, where there's a five-alarm fire at 116th and park avenue. at this point, authorities have confirmed one fatality in this five-story building collapse after an explosion. we've talk with a number of witnesses, both live on air and through reporters at the scene who report that they smelled gas following this explosion itself. the fire department is saying about 200 firefighters are on the scene, 16 people have been transported, most of those at this point are being described as minor injuries. with us now live on the phone is former fdny captain al fuentes. captain, thank you again for joining us. before we went to break, state

senator from the area said that the building in question had 60 open housing violations. stressing, we do not know if this had anything to do with this pancake collapse or explosion that's taken place here, but nevertheless, it raises a question regarding the soundness of the structure as the firefighters go in in an attempt to find anyone who still may be trapped. >> well, that's a great question, and actually, you know what the violations are, people would be hard to determine what exactly would be, but firefighters at any point, as they are moving in to make their primary or secondary searches, they are certainly going to be looking at the stability of the building in question. even though it's a hazardous situation, you know, they still have to kind of do an evaluation of thousand they can go in there and do they need to support certain walls, et cetera before they commit themselves, because

there's going to be some searching and digging they are going to have to do at some point in time, so it's hard with the violations, that certainly brings great cause for concern, and that would be in their minds. >> right now we have an update from con ed, the energy company, they are working closely with fdny and responding to a gas leak at 1652, that's the address, right before the explosion occurred. so the address, captain, is 1646 park avenue, and con ed is saying they are responding to a report of a gas leak at the address of 1652 right before the explosion occurred. >> yeah, i know. some of the messages i've been getting, there have been some reports and actually, i believe, there were some individuals that stated they smelled gas maybe the night before or whatever the case may be. many times the nature of the gas is it accumulates in voids and

spaces of the buildings until it reaches an ignition point. certainly, i'm sure that all the utility companies are working to shut all the utilities so they can make the determination, but i'm sure fire arson investigators will start making the search when the time comes. >> this call, according to c con ed, the call came from a resident who reported smelling gas, but the odor may be coming from outside. a con ed crew got on the scene right after the explosion. please, let me get you to hang on for one quick second. we want to listen in to the chopper pilot over the scene itself. let's listen. >> when we first arrived out here on the scene, now it has diminished significantly, but this is going to be a prolonged operation. we literally have hundreds of firefighters on the scene, and that's not even including the people we have here from other agencies, and we do have quite a

number of injuries and i think michael a little bit earlier did confirm there is one person that died in this explosion, as well. we'll continue to gather details on that. again, we can't stress this enough, priority right now, are there any additional victims, we don't know that yet. michael? >> let's go to ron allen, my colleague standing by near the scene there. ron, what is the latest from your vantage point? >> reporter: i think the big concern in the crowd out here is still whether or not anybody is missing and unaccounted for. i've spoken to a number of people who have been trying to reach people who live near the building in that neighborhood and have not been able to make contact as of yet. we, of course, worry for them, but again at this point we are not hearing reports at the scene of people missing. the fire seems to be out now. people have still out of their homes in the area, the area is cordoned off and most of the stores and homes in this area

and apartment buildings have been evacuated, so people are still trying to figure out what's going on. there are still dozens upon dozens of fire and police apparatus here. i'm not sure exactly, but i would say anywhere from a four to eight square block area is cordoned off as they still get a handle on this. yes, the utilities are visible here. con ed and others are here, obviously, because the leading cause seems to be at this point, again, seems to be there was some kind of gas leak involved. i cannot smell anything like that and most people we've been talking to say they couldn't at this point either. >> ron, i apologize for interrupting you, because we do have someone from con edison standing by. sydney alvarez is a con edison spokesperson. are you there? >> yes, i'm here. con edison was responding to a

gas odor just before the explosion occurred. the call came in at 9:13 a.m. from a resident who reported smelling gas inside the apartment complex. however, the resident also indicated that the odor may have been coming from outside the building. we sent out two con edison crews, they were dispatched maybe 9:15 a.m. and arrived just after the explosion occurred. now in that particular area, the street is served by an eight-inch low-pressure main, physically right now, crews are checking surrounding gas lines and are working to see if there are any leaks, isolate any leaks, and to make the area safe. and, of course, we continue to work closely with the fire department and we were originally dispatched or called by the fire department. >> now you got a call from the person who was at 1652. the heart of this explosion and

fire, 1646 is that address. is the 1642 essentially across the street? give me an idea of how far away this building where the individual reported smelling the gas is from the heart of the scene. >> the information that we're getting is still very preliminary. as far as the logistics and physical location of the two different addresses, i can't really comment on that, because i physically wasn't there. >> okay. >> we want to just really stress to everyone that our crews are out there working very diligently to try to make the area safe. we also want them to be very aware and work with the crews that are out there, the police department and the fire department. >> how has this affected buildings in and around the site of where the fire has taken place? have you shut off power, gas to those areas, as well? >> i don't know just yet. the way in routine situations the way it works is that we have

to wait until the fire department can contain the blaze. once that happens, we can go ahead and turn off any energy services in those areas, but it's all very preliminary right now, still trying to get some very specific information and don't want to go on any speculation. >> absolutely, can you tell me how many crews you have responding? >> we originally dispatched two crews. i know that we have more on the way, but accurate numbers i can't physically give that to you. >> lastly, this 18-inch low-pressure main, does this make it more challenging for crews to assess what's happening and perhaps find the source of this problem? >> sure, sure. correction, it's an eight-inch low pressure, not 18. basically, it's just the design, the amount of energy that is pushed out through that area. that's what that is. >> okay, thank you so much for joining us. we really appreciate it. again, though, confirming around 9:13 eastern time, right before this explosion, a resident

reported smelling gas, but the odor was mainly coming from outside that individual's building. con ed crews got on the scene right after the explosion itself. shortly after the explosion, some dramatic moments on the ground. i want to play you just a little bit from what one mother said while looking for help there. >> my daughter in the corner, i want to know if my daughter is fine, if she's there or not, please, help me. oh, help me, please. oh. >> and that woman reflecting the urgency of what's happening on the ground. the scene itself from what you're seeing, certainly seems, from this particular vantage point, a bit more calm than what we've been watching for the last two hours. we're getting reports of a fire. the five-alarm fire has been put out, but obviously, the urgency surrounds whether or not there were people still in this building at the time of the

collapse itself, and that is something that no one can answer at this point. you've got 200 firefighters at the scene, they are responding to this, and their challenge, first and foremost, was to get the fire itself out and to look for any individuals who may be not only in the building where the fire itself took place, but other buildings in and around that may have also sustained damage that we cannot see from this vantage point. i want to point your attention to the left side of the screen and you see the train tracks, as well. you see the stretch of the debris from this explosion and how far at least from that one snapshot you're able to see the debris extending out. this also affected train service at grand central station, as well. we'll get an update on whether that service has been halted, but i imagine clearly what you're seeing there at that scene, that may still be the case. let me bring in now on the phone new york congressman charlie rangel. he is in washington, d.c., but, obviously, his connections to

harlem, legendary. congressman, thank you so much for your time. >> oh, boy, thank you for the coverage, because it's like being on the job finding out that your home is on fire and you don't know what caused it. >> i know i heard you say earlier you've gotten limited information because you're in washington, d.c. mayor de blasio is on the way to the scene itself, but have you been able to talk with anyone to give you information at least on the urgency of getting people out if they are in that building? >> well, i had an opportunity to hear from the con edison and they had indicated that they had received complaints of the smelling of odor and soon after that, the buildings exploded, and so it just seemed to me that you can get rid of any theory of terrorism being a target in that area, which i know so well. and we've had a similar explosion, not nearly as

horrific as this one, in the riverton apartments on 35th street where i live, and so there's no question in my mind even though the investigation is not been complete, that this was a gas leak, and i hear, too, that it involves a new building, but my concern is those people that can be trapped inside that building and what we don't know that could be just terrible news if we've lost lives in that site. >> and there has been one confirmed fatality already, and at least a dozen or more people with minor injuries and four others listed as more serious. as you know, it's not clear when the building itself went up, but we know in and around most of those buildings are pretty old structures, congressman. >> there's no question about it, and that used to be one of the busiest intersection that we've

had with a market that mayor laguardia established to take the push carts off the street and crowds and customers and people would come from all over the country, and every president, every democrat would always campaign there and the streets were always crowded, and so even though they reopened, the popularity that we had in years past, but that would have been a very, very crowded area for those who know that community. and so we got to get to the bottom of this. when the votes are completed, i'm going to rush there to see what, if anything, i can do, but it's -- it was like i felt at 9/11 when we didn't know who did it or why they did it, but at least i'm satisfied that it's

not an outside cause of this tragic event. thank god for the red cross and other organizations and first responders and containing the damage so far. and i just have to wait for further reports, but it's like hearing about a tragedy when you want so badly to be there to give comfort to your family. and your constituents. >> thank you, sir, for your time, we appreciate in the midst of all of this that you were able to get to the phone and speak about this area that you know better than just about anyone else. thank you, again. by the way, the president was briefed on this incident, as well, so he is up to speed on the latest developments and the white house said thoughts and prayers go out to anyone impacted by this incident and they say they commend the first responders working tirelessly to save lives and contain the fire. the president will continue to be updated as new information becomes available. we're going to be right back with more of our breaking news. again, one fatality confirmed

after an explosion at a residential building in harlem. a dozen or more people with minor injuries, but an unaccounted for number of people could still be trapped in this building. we're going to a break, we'll be right back. bob's heart attack didn't come with a warning. today his doctor has him on a bayer aspirin regimen to help reduce the risk of another one. if you've had a heart attack, be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. if you've had a heart attack, be sure to talk to your doctor ameriprise asked people a simple question: in retirement, will you outlive your money? uhhh. no, that can't happen. that's the thing, you don't know how long it has to last. everyone has retirement questions. so ameriprise created the exclusive.. confident retirement approach. now you and your ameripise advisor can get the real answers you need. well, knowing gives you confidence. start building your confident retirement today.

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♪ [ female announcer ] with five perfectly sweetened whole grains... you can't help but see the good. we continue to follow the breaking news out of manhattan and harlem. specifically one confirmed fatality, and we're now learning that the new mayor of new york, de blasio, will be speaking at noon eastern time. some 200 firefighters have responded to this five-alarm blaze. con ed confirming to us live about 9:135 resident near this site called saying they smelled gas in the area, mostly outside of their building. soon after that call, there was an explosion, and we've spoken to a number of people who got out of that building, but say that they saw other individuals who were inside at the time.

we're talking about 9:00 eastern time, so you can imagine there would be people inside. we're waiting for more information, but this is an ongoing emergency situation on the ground in harlem, affecting a number of people at this hour. there's also widespread confusion and mounting frugs ration this morning as officials in malaysia expand their massive search zone as they scour for the flight 370. what's now an unprecedented 12-nation effort, the search area encompasses about 27,000 square nautical miles. to put that in perspective, it's almost the size of the united kingdom. reports the boeing 777 plane may have doubled back, authorities are still not sure where it went after turning. nbc's tom costello joins me now. tom, usually when you have an incident, with each day you get some answers, maybe not a clear picture, but some answers. today is seems we are more confused than when this first

was announced. >> i think that's the headline, the headline is "confusion." the malaysians have candidly contradicted themselves at times whether there is or is not data this plane made a left turn and then headed back, essentially, reversing course and heading back over the malaysian mainland and over the strait of malacca. we have sources that suggest, yes, that did happen, the malaysians said, yes, a general said yes, then they seemed to want to walk that back and are very much noncommittal on this, but i don't think there's any arguing with the search zone, which as you showed, is absolutely massive. it's moved beyond, of course, the gulf of thailand, beyond the south china sea, beyond the strait of malacca, along the west coast of malaysia, and it encompasses, as well, the sea to the north of the indonesian island of sumatra and asked the indian navy to join this effort, and if this plane did indeed

have five hours or so of fuel onboard, it potentially could have flown off into the indian ocean. the indian ocean, as you know, is massive, and there is not much between the island of indonesia and the south of south africa and beyond. there's just not much in that massive body of water. so now we are at a point where we're just simply waiting for any sign whatsoever that any piece of wreckage has been found, but when you talk about a search zone the size of the united kingdom and you're looking for a needle in a hay stack, this is a massive effort and i must say, everybody at this point is in many conversations i've had on the phone, everybody is confused and struggling with the facts. >> what is the key at this point moving forward, tom? you've got this massive search, what can happen at this point that might be a game changer, is there some technology that might be available that hasn't been used, for example? >> there doesn't seem to be. i think we are talking about an

area of the world that frankly is not well covered on radar, not well covered with satellite coverage. i think once you leave that indonesian coast, if, in fact, the plane was flying over the indonesian island of sumatra into the indian ocean, there aren't that many assets out there. we may be in a situation where, you know, this is all conject e conjecture, but if the plane flew into the indian ocean, we're going to be waiting until some piece of wreckage is spotted somewhere in that massive body of water. if the plane continued flying up over into vietnam, we may be waiting to hear if there's some wreckage spotted in the vietnamese highlands or china or laos for that matter. if the plane disintigrated over the south china sea, by now we should have seen some wreckage somewhere, but there's nothing. >> quickly, the pilot's final communication with air traffic

control, i read that quote today and it seems, again, that everything was okay. >> yeah, it was just standard, it was good night, as if he was being passed off from malaysian controllers on to vietnamese controllers, and i did talk to the folks who run flight radar 24, which is out of stockholm, i talked to them this morning, and they say that's when they lost contact, their radar system lost contact at that moment and they show a slight jog to the right, which they say is consistent with every other flight that is on that path and headed to beijing. they don't show the jog to the left that the malaysian military has at times suggested that they saw. if you're confused, believe me, you're not alone. >> absolutely. and in the midst of this are families who do not know what happened to their loved ones. thank you very much, tom, greatly appreciate it. and we'll be right back with more of the breaking news, the explosion in harlem. right now, one confirmed fatality. mayor bill de blasio expected to speak about ten minutes from now, the top of the hour.

we'll bring you the very latest, though, from that scene. [ male announcer ] this man has an accomplished research and analytical group at his disposal. ♪ but even more impressive is how he puts it to work for his clients. ♪ morning. morning. thanks for meeting so early. oh, it's not a big deal at all. come on in. [ male announcer ] it's how edward jones makes sense of investing. ♪

we want to get you caught up on the big political story of day, a big loss for democrats in a special election in florida's 13th district that could mean some soul-searching ahead of this year's midterms. republican david jolly, a former lobbyist, narrowly beat alex zing. jolly managed a win. the clearwater-st. petersburg area is a swing district where president obama won by 5,000 votes in 2012. democrat alex sink was considered a strong candidate but it was not enough to win and that has democrats worried going into this year's midterm. joining me now, chuck, you know politics better than anyone else, but you also know florida here. so what is the aftershock of what's happened there? >> well, there seems to be a couple of things. number one, democrats had a hard

time getting their voters out. what should be a swing district in a presidential year and even a general election and midterm turned into a district that was pretty heavily favored, tilted toward the republicans, at least turnout-wise. and in some postmortems already, the pollster for alex sink came out and admitted -- he said, look, health care is a big motivator for republicans to go to the polls. it is not serving as that kind of motivator for democrats, and there is not yet necessarily anything out else out there serving as a motivator to get democrats to the polls, so that's what you take away from this. it's not that democrats lost this district. it was a close race. republicans held it for a long time. what is frustrating to a lot of democrats, tamron, is how they lost it. they had the better candidate. they had the better organization. they had more money among the two campaigns. but outside money, millions of dollars of outside money turned this into a referendum on health care, particularly on medicare advantage cuts as well, and you

had the fact that the national environment. so what is the message that democrats fear that they're learning out of this? is that the national political environment trumps a campaign apparatus, a good organization that you think you've put together. well, what kind of message does that send to the red state democrats that are fighting for their lives in these re-election battles in the senate? i can tell you those states, arkansas, louisiana, not as friendly democratic territory as the 13th district down there in florida. >> you get the impression that democrats believe that, for example, the battle over minimum wage will offset some of the heat from the health care issues that could impact. but it seems that they're having trouble making that message a broader one that could stick. >> they haven't been able to figure it out, because the message works. minimum wage -- our new poll shows minimum wage comes in among the top five best characteristics, that voters tell us would make them more likely to vote for a congressional candidate. so it has the potential.

what you didn't see down there in the sink campaign, she spent a lot of time dealing with the health care issue, and you talked to some democrats, arguably she's dealing with it to at least a draw. but the more time you spend on there, what is the agenda that democrats can come up with that actually motivates democrats to get out to the polls? what is their positive message to do that? republicans have what they have, which is to stop president obama and to stop health care. they have their message to motivate their voters. right now, the democrats haven't been able to figure out how to take the popularity of minimum wage and turn that into something that motivates voters to the polls. >> all right, chuck, thank you so much for joining us, we greatly appreciate it. we continue to follow that breaking news out of new york city in harlem where the five-alarm fire and explosion has resulted in at least one fatality. let's get to now -- i am just being told that now you have two confirmed fatalities in this. let's get nbc's ron allen, who is on the scene. he's there right now on the ground. what's the situation there now?

>> reporter: well, a lot of concern about the fatality count perhaps going up higher here. people we've talked to on the scene up there, you can see there's still smoke around the building. there's still people out of their homes, trying to account for everybody in the neighborhood. a lot of concern that there could be more to this. the leading theory at this point is that there was some kind of a gas leak that caused this. reports to con edison moments before the explosion of the gas leak by a neighbor. unclear whether the gas leak was in this building that exploded or nearby. that's what they're doing now, they're going throughout the neighborhood trying to make sure that there are no other leaks and that the area is safe. there are still dozens of police and fire units on the scene. there's still a wide area that is cordoned off where people are not allowed to get near. there's still smoke billowing out of the site of the explosion. this situation could continue for some time. we understand the mayor of new

york, bill de blasio is expected to make a statement at the top of the hour, at about noon eastern time, so hopefully there will be more information about that. there have also been reports that this building had a number of code violations, so people in the neighborhood are concerned about that. there's always been concern in neighborhoods like this about whether or not landlords are doing -- making all the repairs that people request, so that's another line of inquiry for the investigators that's going to go on for some time, trying to understand how this could happen in what obviously is a very densely populated neighborhood that would have been filled with people at about 9:00, just after 9:00 this morning, eastern time when all this happened. >> ron, can you speak to the staging area, since there are so many people who are wondering if a friend or family member is still inside that building? where are those people being directed to go? >> reporter: at this point, we're not hearing reports of people missing. we were hearing anecdotal stories in the crowd. a short time ago, people still wanting to know. at this point, though, there are no reports that we're hearing of

people who were missing in the rubble and the debris of this. from what i understand at the scene of the explosion, the building was completely flattened. it was a four or five-story structure, an apartment building. at the bottom, there were commercial businesses. there was a church nearby. so there's a high probability that there would have been people very close to all this. investigators are still trying to sort all this out, put it all together as to what happened. two fatalitieies confirmed and still concern that there might be other people missing. >> thank you very much. we'll continue to follow this breaking news. at one point, we were looking at a five-alarm fire. it appears that that fire is out. but some 200 firefighters at the scene. two people now within this hour confirmed dead, and more than a dozen others being treated at local hospitals in and around that community. it's a shocking sight to wake up to this morning to see this building all but obliterated to

the pancake status, flattened in this neighborhood where we've spoken with mothers and other people who had just taken their kids to school and had gone back home to face this unimaginable situation. so we'll get the very latest in the next hour. my colleague andrea mitchell is in washington as she is standing by right now to pick up the very latest there, including our first words from the mayor of new york city about this one, andrea. >> thanks so much, tamron. and good day, i'm andrea mitchell in washington, where we are picking up our continuing coverage of that building collapse in east harlem, new york. at this hour, more than 200 firefighters are working to get this fire under control while family members have rushed to the scene to look for loved ones and to get more information. >> my daughter in the corner. i want to know if she's there or not. oh, help me, please. >> at least two people are

confirmed dead, and a senior fdny official says that at least 16 were injured after the blast. perhaps more, though. this is what we heard just moments ago here on msnbc from a woman who was inside the building. >> there was a big boom out of nowhere. i thought it was the metro rails. it lasted for like five or six minutes. the windows came tumbling, rumbling down. i have no windows. as i got off the toilet, i came down the hallway. debris started coming down out of nowhere. i tried to run down the stairs, that didn't happen. i got jammed in the apartment. i couldn't get out of the apartment at all. so i took a knife and started just hacking at it, hacking at the lock. and then my next door neighbor kicked the door open. that's when we start eed runnin out the building. >> nbc's ron allen is at the scene. we know the mayor is going to have a briefing. we'll of course have that l