An explosion leveled a two-story bank building Tuesday in this western Colorado ski resort, killing two people and injuring more than a dozen others, rescuers said.
More than 40 people were digging through the rubble of the Crested Butte National Bank searching for two missing people."They're doing it by hand. We have some heavy equipment there, but most of the rescuers are using their hands," said Bob Gillen, spokesman for the Crested Butte Mountain Resort, which was handling rescue operations.
Gillen said two people died in the explosion. All but two of the 17 people in the bank have been accounted for, he said.
The stone building collapsed shortly after 9 a.m., apparently from an explosion, according to Tim Rolph, director of the ski patrol who was coordinating some of the rescue effort.
Gillen said authorities did not know what caused the explosion.
"There was an explosion, but there are no natural gas lines in there. We're puzzled by it," he said. "It doesn't make sense."
There was no immediate word on the extent of injuries.
Heavy snow hampered rescue efforts and delayed the arrival of ambulances from Gunnison, 30 miles to the south, Gillen said.
An airplane from Gunnison was waiting to take victims to St. Mary's Hospital in Grand Junction, western Colorado's largest hospital.
The little town of Crested Butte, population about 1,000, lies about a mile below the ski resort. More than 200 people, including ski patrollers and volunteer firefighters, were working on the rescue effort, Gillen said.
Kathryn Northcut, a reporter with the Crested Butte Chronicle, said the scene was chaotic.
"You can see the bank, and the roof is only about 10 or 15 feet above the ground and it was a two-story stone building," she said.
She said the bank was open when the building collapsed.