We were a bit alarmed with a tipster wrote to us that “there is a huge freaking fire burning in front of the World Bank. Plumes of smoke, people running, the whole enchilada.” D.C. government’s emergency alert system has issued two alerts, one reporting a “Man hole cover explosion at 18th & G St., NW.” and a follow-up sent minutes later reporting “Several street closures surrounding area of man hole cover explosion.” After snooping around a bit, we found that officials are claiming the explosion is due to an underground electrical transformer and nothing more serious. WTOP radio has audio of an FBI agent reporting about the incident and a short report. They say parts of the World Bank have been evacuated and quote the FBI telling them “These manhole covers blew into the air spewing smoke, debris and some small flames. This appears to be have been caused by an electrical transformer in an underground tunnel.”

Are you in the area? What did you see? We’ll update this post when more details are in.