SILVER SPRING, Md. 鈥� Officials said Tuesday they鈥檙e close to identifying the victims of an explosion and fire that ripped through a Silver Spring apartment complex last week.
鈥淲e’re hopeful that the identification process will be moving much further forward in the next couple of days,鈥� Montgomery County police Assistant Chief Russ Hamill said Tuesday.
Police recovered a . On Monday, the sixth body was discovered in what remains of Flower Hill Branch Apartments, a聽four-story apartment community on Piney Branch Road.聽On Aug. 10, a deadly explosion at the apartment community sent 34 people to the hospital and has left more than 50 homeless.
While investigators have yet to identify the dead, police have said the deceased were among the seven people who haven鈥檛 been accounted for since the explosion. Police.
Daniel Board, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said that investigators hoped to know the cause of the blast by the end of this week.
Residents had reported smelling gas before the explosion and officials responded to calls for a possible gas leak on July 25.
at buildings affected by the blast.
Earl Stoddard, director of Montgomery County鈥檚 Emergency Management and Homeland Security Office, said gas lines were 鈥渃apped off鈥� so that they would not impact the gas lines of adjacent buildings, which, 鈥渂ased on the inspection that’s been relayed to us by Washington Gas, those (gas) lines are safe.”
U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., said federal partners were working with local officials to help the displaced families. There were 110 people who called the Flower Hill Branch Apartments community home 鈥� 53 of whom are now living at a shelter.
