Shocked and bloodied eyewitnesses in the small Texas town of West described the overwhelming power of a Texas fertilizer plant explosion that killed between 5 and 15 people, injured scores more and caused extensive damage to dozens of local homes, a nursing home, and a middle school.

“The school’s gone, the apartments are gone,” resident Sammy Chavez, wearing a blood-soaked t-shirt, told reporters. He was sitting in his truck watching the fire when the sudden, ear-shattering blast sent shards of glass spinning through the air. “It’s just horrible.”

Other residents of the town of 2,700 ran from their homes after the blast filled the sky with a massive fireball around 8 p.m. local time on Wednesday.

Crystal Jerigan rushed outside her home about 15 blocks from the blazing West Fertilizer Company plant after hearing the sirens of emergency responders. She was in the driveway with her two daughters preparing to flee when the plant exploded.

“About the time that I got to the car, you could hear the boom and within seconds, it just sucked you in and just threw you to the ground,” Jerigan told TODAY.

Another local resident, Derrick Hurtt, who was sitting in his truck with his daughter Khloey taping the burning plant, caught the moment of the blast on camera. He estimated he was at least 300 yards from the plant, but that was still too close.

In his video, Hurtt can be heard asking his daughter if she is OK.

“Please get out of here, please get out of here, dad please get out of here,” the young girl can be heard saying. “I can’t hear anything.”

“I’m pretty sure it lifted the truck off the ground,” Hurtt said on TODAY. “It just blew me over on top of her. It all happened so quick that things just kind of went black for a moment.”

Another bloodied, shaken resident, identified as local EMS doctor George Smith, told reporters: “There was just a major, major explosion. The windows came in on me, the roof came in on me, the ceiling came in. We lost all communication when the power went out.”

“The whole street is gone,” he added.

Even standing several blocks from the plant, residents said they were knocked back by the terrific shock that radiated from the plant explosion.

“A nearby nursing home is really bad, there’s an apartment complex and the school that caught fire,” Crystal Anthony, who serves on the town’s school board of trustees, told the Waco Tribune-Herald. “We’ve been moving patients out of the nursing home and taking them to the football field and gymnastics building on Davis Street.”

Other residents speculated about the cause of the explosion that wiped out homes and killed friends in the town about 20 miles north of Waco.

“It was a small fire and then water got sprayed on the ammonium nitrate, and it exploded just like the Oklahoma City bomb,” local hotel clerk Jason Shelton told the Dallas Morning News. “I live about a thousand feet from it and it blew my screen door off and my back windows. There’s houses leveled that were right next to it.”

“That whole side of town looks like a disaster,” Bill Manolakis told the paper. “Who in their right mind sticks a damn plant next to houses?”

Bill Bohannan was visiting his parents in one of the houses near the plant, and witnessed the devastating explosion.

“I said, ‘This thing is going to blow,’” as he hurried his parents into the car, Bohannan told the Waco Tribune-Herald. “I was standing next to my car with my fiancée, waiting for my parents to come out and [the plant] exploded. It knocked us into the car.”

“Every house within about four blocks is blown apart,” Bohannan said.

Related:

Hundreds injured in explosion at Texas fertilizer plant

This story was originally published on Thu Apr 18, 2013 4:14 AM EDT

The following are reports from social media after a series of blasts shook the finish line area of the famed Boston Marathon on Monday. Warning: Some of these images are graphic. 

Related:
2 explosions rock Boston Marathon

Updated at 9:16 p.m. ET: Officials have called in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to investigate a thunderous explosion that killed two and left 27 homes uninhabitable in a south Indianapolis neighborhood late Saturday night, NBC affiliate WTHR reported.

The blast was reported shortly after 11 p.m. near South Sherman Drive and Stop 11 Road on the south side of Indianapolis, WTHR said.

"Multiple houses engulfed in flames. Even the police officers that got to the scene before I did were not sure what happened. Kind of a surreal scene, even for police officers," Marion County Sheriff John Layton told the station.

Emergency crews rescued Glenn and Gloria Olvey from their home, the Indianapolis Star reported, and were reportedly “battered, bruised and sore.”

Matt Kryger / The Indianapolis Star

Two houses were leveled by an explosion that sparked a fire and killed two people early Sunday morning. The powerful nighttime blast shattered windows, crumpled walls and could be felt at least three miles away.

The cause of the explosion and fires wasn't immediately clear, but Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard dismissed reports of a possible plane crash as he arrived at the scene. Fire officials said separately that investigators would be checking whether natural gas was possibly involved but they had no further details on what was behind the blast that sent tall flames skyward.

Ballard said at least two homes had been destroyed by the powerful blast and that the damage went on "for blocks on end."

Read more from NBC affiliate WTHR

Television video showed tall flames shooting overhead and spreading to numerous homes shortly after the blast reported around 11 p.m. Saturday. Hours after the flames pierced the skyline, firefighters had begun containing the flames and thick clouds of gray smoke billowed overhead.

Matt Kryger / AP

Authorities say a loud explosion has leveled a home in Indianapolis and set four others ablaze in a neighborhood, causing several injuries.

"It was so strong that it clearly had an effect for blocks," Ballard said from the area. Beyond the burning homes there was wider damage in the neighborhood: windows shattered in nearby homes, walls caved in and garage doors were knocked off their hinges.

Residents were told to evacuate to a nearby elementary school and people could be seen shivering in white blankets handed out to them as they moved off.

Ballard said investigators will have to see what they find in coming days.

"We're going to need some comforting in the next few days," he said.

Earlier, Capt. Rita Burris with the Indianapolis Fire Department told The Associated Press that the scene looked like something out of a war zone. "It's really messy," she said soon after it began.

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LAFAYETTE, Colo. – Boulder County sheriff’s deputies say a man and a woman were seriously injured after a package left at their home exploded Saturday afternoon.

Their conditions were not immediately known, The Denver Post reported.

Police say they believe there may be another package in the car and were searching it with a bomb robot.

Neighbor Tim Walker told the Post that the woman had picked up two packages left at her doorstep and was loading them into a silver Volvo, parked outside the home, when one blast occurred.

Deputies evacuated several residences from the neighborhood by using ladders to help people climb over fences, the Denver newspaper reported.

Msnbc.com staff and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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MULLAN, Idaho - Seven miners were pulled from more than a mile below the surface after an accident at a northern Idaho silver mine where two workers died in separate mishaps this year.

One of the men was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, while the other six were treated at the scene, said Hecla Mining Co. spokeswoman Melanie Hennessey.

The miners were working about 5,900 feet underground when they were injured about 7:40 p.m. Wednesday by a rock burst, which is an explosion of rock caused by excessive pressure from the weight of the ground above. They were working in the Lucky Friday, one of the nation's deepest underground mines.

Initial reports indicated that the miners could be trapped, but that wasn't the case, Hennessey said.

"Everyone in the mine has been accounted for and the mine is currently closed," she said.

The federal Mine Safety and Health Administration will investigate the accident that happened months after two other Lucky Friday silver miners died.

In April, a roof collapse in a tunnel more than a mile underground trapped Larry Marek. Crews recovered his body nine days later.

Last month, Brandon Gray was buried in rubble after trying to dislodge a jammed rock bin. He died from his injuries two days later.

Shortly after Gray died, Mine Safety and Health Administration regulators criticized Hecla for safety failures that led to Marek's death. The mine received four citations and faces nearly $1 million in penalties, the Spokesman-Review of Spokane, Wash., reported.

The investigation report cited Lucky Friday management for failing to install adequate ground support systems and neglecting to test the stability of the area where the collapse that killed Marek occurred.

The mine is currently undergoing a $200 million project to deepen it to nearly 9,000 feet to increase access to deeper silver deposits. Hecla officials expect the project to be completed by 2014.