An explosive night in the southern United States: Police in the state of Virginia raided a home in Arlington, located on the other side of the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., and the house exploded completely, seconds before police entered the building.
A special unit of the Arlington Police Department arrived on a quiet residential street in the city after receiving a report of a man firing a fireworks gun at neighboring homes. The officers tried to call the man, who was apparently in the building, and even announced to him on loudspeakers outside the window, but the man made no contact with the officers.
Virginia: Police arrive to search and house explodes
After a while, the officers received a warrant allowing them to enter the property and a vehicle belonging to the police SWAT unit entered the yard of the house. Officers told CNN that the man fired a volley inside the house and seconds later the entire house exploded. Dramatic footage of the moments of the explosion circulated on social media. Police said it was unclear at this stage what happened to the man who was apparently in the house. None of the officers were injured in the explosion.
"You could really feel the shock from the explosion, it was impressive. I've lived here for 50 years and I've never experienced anything like this," Bob Maines, a resident of the Belmont neighborhood where the explosion took place, told local news network WJLA. "My first thought was that I wanted to see what happened to the house, and then I thought, 'If there's such a big explosion, should I go outside?' But there were a lot of people on the street," Maines added.
Claims circulated on social media that the man was a Virginia resident named Thomas Yu and that he was a radical leftist who used to harass government officials and post conspiracy theories on social media. There has been no official verification of these reports.
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