CARLINVILLE, Ill. -- A powerful exp...

CARLINVILLE, Ill. -- A powerful explosion take awayed a house early Wednesday, killing a woman and her young grandson and seriously burning brace of her sons, officials said.

More than a dozen other domestic circles were damaged, and an 88-year-old neighbor was treated for carves

Utility workers and the state fire marshal's office were still working to verify the cause, yet Police Chief David Haley said his department was treating it as a natural gas explosion. Residents of the house and other persons in the area had reported smelling gas.

The explosion about 7:30 a.m. left a crater filled with charred, splintered forest where the house had stood. Debris was utter violentlyed as far as a close away in all directions, and brace vehicles parked nearby were blackened.

knock Eskew, who lives a man and wife of houses away, said he was working onward a computer when he "heard couple loud explosions, kind of like an F- 16 flying through the whole extent of real low." His house shook and a certain quantity of of his front windows shattered.

Leigh Morris, a spokesman for St Louis-based Ameren Corp., the supplier of natural gas and electrical service in the area by the agency of its AmerenIP subsidiary, said the company had reviewed its records and received no reports of anyone calling about a suspected gas leak in the neighborhood.

Police identified the dead as 55-year-old Margaret Hatlen, whose dead body was found in the basement of the devastateed home, and her 9- year-old grandson, Michael Albracht.

Her 27-year-old son had reduce to ashess over 30 percent of his corpse and a 15-year-old boy was sharply burned, Haley said.

Carlinville is a community of 5800 race about 60 miles northeast of St Louis.

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