Power restored at UC Berkeley after large explosion on campus

On Monday night, a massive explosion on the University of California, Berkeley campus caused the entire school to be evacuated, and left one person hospitalized. The explosion occurred around 7:00pm in an underground utility vault as workers were trying to restore power after an outage. The power was knocked out of at least 11other buildings after the explosion though, and classes in those buildings were cancelled.

Three people received minor burns, but did not need hospitalization. “The explosion was about two stories high and as wide as a two-lane street,” UC Berkeley spokesman Dan Mogulof said. “We’re very fortunate there were no serious injuries.”

There is speculation that the explosion was caused by an underground copper wire theft that occurred last week. Officials had thought the problem was solved, but Mogulof said, “It appears that may have caused far greater damage than initially thought. It’s more extensive.”

The power initially went out Monday around 4:30pm, leaving many students with no way to study.  “I have midterms tomorrow as do a bunch of other students on campus. A lot of students don’t have power to study or get their laptops on or anything like that,” Kelsie Carlson told KTVU. Officials are also looking into the ammonia leak that was reported in Latimer Hall shortly after the power outage and right before the explosion.