A thunderous manhole blast sent panicked crowds in Times Square sprinting for safety on Sunday evening — but no one was injured in the fracas.
The FDNY responded to three manhole fires after the explosion echoed through Midtown around 6:45 p.m. at 215 West 43 Street between Times Square and 8th Avenue, fire officials said.
While searching surrounding properties, firefighters also found elevated levels of carbon monoxide in the cellar of 229 West 43rd Street, which was mitigated a short time later. By 9 p.m., firefighters had left the scene.
Con Edison confirmed that the blast was caused by a cable failure. There were no customer outages and no property damage, the utility said.
The sounds of the explosion had terrified people in the area. Video shared on social media shows frightened tourists and locals fleeing the scene as they try to figure out what was going on.
The area was temporarily closed down as FDNY and ConEd investigated.