A plumber’s SUV exploded on a quiet Queens block early Friday, damaging nearby homes and cars and rattling neighbors, officials said.
The Infiniti QX56 blew up on 133rd St. near 131st Ave. in South Ozone Park about 6:45 a.m. — just minutes before the plumber and his family were about to get into the vehicle.
“I was cooking,” plumber Jeremy Harricharam told the Daily News Friday, adding that he was about to leave the house with his wife, child and mother so he could drop them all off before beginning his work day.
“This happened five minutes before all of us were going to go into that vehicle,” said Harricharam, 41, pointing at the pitted wreck of his SUV. “I don’t know what to think. I’m just in shock.”
No injuries were reported.
FDNY officials believe a ruptured gas-powered torch that plumbers use to sweat and solder pipes sparked the blast.
The massive explosion rocked 133rd St., witnesses said. It turned the SUV into a mangled piece of melted metal, damaged two cars it was parked next to, blew out windows and damaged the exteriors of six nearby homes, an FDNY spokesman said.
Firefighters put out the flames within a few minutes. The force of the blast was so huge that the FDNY called in the NYPD Bomb Squad to assist in the investigation.
No criminality was immediately expected.
Six lithium-ion batteries for power tools in the SUV also caught fire, but that was secondary to the gas canister explosion. The ruptured gas can may have been leaking in the SUV until something ignited it, an FDNY official said.
Harricharam’s brother Dinell confirmed plumber’s tools were inside the SUV, but couldn’t think of anything that would have exploded.
