Vehicles lie overturned in the parking lot of Ford City Mall, 7601 S. Cicero, after an explosion Wednesday night.
(Tribune photo by Frank Hanes) January 12, 2005
Ten Injured in Mall Explosion (Chicago - 1/12/05)
By Imran Vittachi and Nancy Ryan Tribune staff reporter Published January 13, 2005, 12:45 AM CST
Ten people were injured, three of them seriously, after an apparent natural-gas explosion Wednesday night at Ford City Mall on the city's Southwest Side that upended cars and left a 5-foot-deep, 70-foot-long crater in the parking lot.
The explosion in the mall's parking lot occurred at 8:30 p.m. as stores in the mall at 7601 S. Cicero Ave. were getting ready to close and shoppers were heading home. It caused nearby homes to shake and bits of asphalt and dust to rain down onto the parking lot, fire officials and witnesses said.
"I heard this big explosion, as if a plane had fallen," said Iradh Erusca, who lives near the mall. "It shook my house, and when I looked outside there was this white smoke."
Officials were not sure what caused the explosion late Wednesday. "We think it was a gas main," Fire Commissioner Cortez Trotter said at a news conference late Wednesday....