Hope Fades for Missing 2 After Blast in NYC

With two nights passed since an explosion leveled a building in the East Village of Manhattan, the chances of finding two missing men alive are getting slimmer by the hour. Families and friends continue to search for Moises Lucon, 26, who worked as a busboy at the Sushi Park restaurant, and Nicholas Figuerora, 23, who had been on a date at the restaurant when the blast occurred. “We have just been walking down the streets, one by one,” Lucon's younger brother, Zacarias, tells the Daily News. “We are just so exhausted and upset. I don’t know what happened to him.”

Figuerora's date survived the explosion with injuries that included a broken nose and a punctured lung, her sister tells the newspaper. Of the 22 people injured in the explosion, four remained hospitalized in critical condition, reports the New York Times. Investigators continue to look into whether an upgrade to the restaurant's gas and plumbing caused the explosion, with Mayor Bill de Blasio saying yesterday that “there is a possibility that the gas line was inappropriately accessed internally by people in the building.” Among those whose apartment was destroyed is Sopranos actress Drea de Matteo, notes Entertainment Weekly. (More New York City stories.)