'It was terrible': 1 dead, up to 7 missing after natural gas line explosion in Kentucky

MORELAND, Ky. – A regional gas pipeline ruptured early Thursday in Kentucky, causing a massive explosion that killed one person, hospitalized five others, destroyed railroad tracks and forced the evacuation of a nearby mobile home park, authorities said.

The 30-inch wide pipeline moves natural gas under high pressure, so the rupture at about 1 a.m. caused a tremendous amount of damage in the immediate area, authorities said. Firefighters were still working to douse the flames hours later, with trucks repeatedly refilling their tanks and returning to the scene.

Lincoln County Emergency Management Director Don Gilliam said the flames reached about 300 feet in the air and could be seen throughout Lincoln County.

Authorities are uncertain what caused the massive blast. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating.

The explosion happened in the Moreland community near Junction City and Hustonville.

About 75 people in the Indian Camp trailer park in the Moreland community were evacuated to the New Hope Baptist Church in Stanford. Authorities said they don't yet know if others are missing or unaccounted for.

Don Coulter, 84, who lives in the Moreland trailer community, said the fire was blazing for several hours before it was put out.

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"It was terrible," Coulter said. "The clocks were falling off the walls, the trailer was shaking like crazy. I went to the door and I see this big ball of fire, and it was noisy. I open the door and the door's so hot, I couldn't hold it. I couldn't get in the car because it was so hot, so we run across the road.

"I thought the world was coming to an end."

Jodie Coulter, Don's daughter-in-law was at the relief center in New Hope Baptist Church on Thursday morning feeling frightened, shocked and lucky to be alive, she said.

She woke up to her house shaking and said she immediately looked out her window and saw a light. Several days before, she said the gas company put up a flag in the exact spot where the light was.

"I jumped across the bed because I knew it was the gas line," Jodie Coulter said.

She said she suffered burns on her arms and back and was treated in a hospital. She remembers "sheer heat" as she ran from her Moreland home.

"I could feel it as we were running from the house," she said. "I could feel it, like if you had your hand in an oven."

Jodie Coulter said one of her neighbors who died was a "real good woman."

Emergency managers said the rupture involved the Texas Eastern Transmission pipeline, which is owned and operated by Enbridge. The pipeline stretches more than 9,000 miles, from the Mexican border in Texas to New York City.

Because the line crosses several states, its inspections fall to the federal government. The NTSB said it was sending three investigators.

An official with Lincoln County Emergency Management said five to seven people are unaccounted for.

A meteorologist at WKYT-TV, in Lexington, said the explosion was strong enough that it popped up on the radar.

Contributing: The Associated Press. Follow (Louisville, Ky.) Courier Journal on Twitter: @courierjournal

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Kentucky gas explosion: 1 dead, 5 hospitalized after pipeline ruptures