Breaking news: At 9:30 am on Wednesday, an explosion occurred inside a building situated at Park Avenue at East 116th Street in the Harlem section of New York City.

According to witnesses, a fire started out inside the Absolute Piano store at 1646 Park Avenue and later an explosion was heard. According to officials, at least one person is dead. The fire and explosion had also injured at least 16 people by the time the fire department responded with about 10 fire trucks fighting the fire at the scene. Park Avenue was covered in rubble from the explosion and a large billowing cloud of smoke could be seen from blocks away in East Harlem.

According to fire officials, the building in East Harlem collapsed on Wednesday morning prompting authorities to respond to reports of people trapped in the building. Witnesses reported that they had heard an explosion right before the building caved in. After the explosion, broken windows were found in neighboring buildings and several people took video footage with their phones. The fire department (@FDNY) tweeted "Now: Photo of #Manhattan collapse. #FDNY has 39 units and 168 members responding. The scene is developing."

Authorities closed down the section of 116th Street from Fifth Avenue to Lexington Avenue. The cause of the damage is unclear but dozens of firefighters worked to keep it under control as paramedics rushed to assist the wounded. People working and living several buildings away reported feeling the shock of the explosion and ran away from the scene.  A woman living about four buildings away said that "It was complete shock."

"It shook my building so hard that I literally thought my building was falling down." One person (@orangeadnan) tweeted "Huge explosion at east harlem. A building just completely exploded."

The Metro announced that "Service into and out of GCT is temp suspended until further notice due to an explosion in a building adjacent to our tracks." Many new details are coming out in real time on the Reddit thread as people react to the explosion here. "I heard it as well from 20 blocks away. This is the third brownstone explosion/collapse I've witnessed in the last five years I've lived here," one person wrote.