No residents were injured in the explosion on Vermont Avenue in Northwest. (The actual manhole involved is not pictured here).

Kevin Harber / Flickr

A manhole exploded Wednesday night near Logan Circle, causing no injuries but damaging one vehicle.

D.C. Fire and EMS responded to reports of a carbon monoxide leak in an apartment building in the 1300 block of Vermont Ave. Northwest around 8 p.m. and discovered the smoking manhole outside the building while searching for the source of the leak, according to D.C. Fire spokesperson Vito Maggiolo. Pepco crews were also already nearby, working on underground electrical issues.

The smoking manhole on Vermont Avenue then exploded, causing damage to one vehicle. A second manhole a few car-lengths away also began smoking, according to Maggiolo, but did not explode.

Maggiolo said these explosions become more common in the winter, when salt and other snow treatments on roadways wash into manholes, causing corrosion of underground cables. Pepco crews cut affected the wires that caused the explosion, and the apartment building was evacuated and ventilated.

The situation resolved sometime after midnight, according to Maggiolo.

This post has been corrected to list the address of the apartment building in the 1300 block of Vermont Avenue. 

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