Explosion rocks Yellowknife neighbourhood early Tuesday morning

Emergency services responded to an explosion in a downtown Yellowknife neighbourhood early Tuesday morning. 

A loud crack at 2:10 a.m. local time from a property near the corner of 54th Street and 52nd Avenue woke up several residents and drew a small crowd. 

An ambulance with its sirens on was seen leaving the scene about 20 minutes after the explosion, and two people living in the neighbourhood described seeing one person who appeared to have been injured. 

It's unclear where the blast originated or how it happened. Debris from what appeared to have been a boat was strewn across the road and neighbouring properties — and hanging from nearby trees. There also appeared to be damage to a garage. 

Cody Erasmus lives nearby, and told CBC News he had been watching a movie at home when he heard the bang. 

"My whole house shook. I thought maybe my vehicle blew up or someone was shooting at my house, so I turned off my TV and kind of got down. And then I was looking outside, there was no flames or anything," Erasmus said.  

CBC News has reached out to the city and the RCMP for more information. 

Sarah Cleary, a resident of an apartment right across the street, said she woke up to a "really loud noise" when her bedroom window broke.

"I was gonna run away. I thought somebody was breaking in my window," Cleary said.

She ran outside with her neighbours and saw lots of debris. She described it as a scary experience and even at noon on Tuesday said she hadn't been able to get back to sleep.

Roberta Bulmer, the North Slave Housing Corporation manager for the same building where Cleary lives, said she got many calls from tenants about the explosion.

"Most of them have had problems with stuff shaking off the walls and stuff, so [it] scared them. Some of them couldn't sleep," Bulmer said.

She said the apartment building suffered significant damage, pointing it out to CBC.

"There's windows broken. Bottom suites, top suites, bottom windows, all the upstairs over there, that on top of the veranda, the roof is coming down," Bulmer said.

Dean Meyer, another resident who lives across the street, said the medicine cabinet in his bathroom and some pictures were knocked off the walls because of the explosion.

"The doors flew open and stuff flew on the sink. So that's how powerful it was. It was very powerful," Meyer said.

He said when he got out around 2 a.m., he saw someone lying next to a boat and there were bystanders around.

"I went to go help them and the RCMP came along and told me to back off and so I just went back into my yard," Meyer said.

Later in the morning, Meyer swept the street of debris.

"There's lots of glass and debris and screws and nails and stuff like that."