UPDATE, 5 PM: The City of Falls Church released an early statement regarding an explosion at Eden Center that occurred earlier this afternoon. Three people have been sent to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries, while the cause remains unknown.
Saigon East, a mall portion of the Vietnamese shopping center where the blast occurred, is currently closed until Thursday. Many restaurants in the neighboring area, including Thanh Son Tofu, Bambu, and Huong Viet, are open for business today as usual.
Original post continues below.
Reports of a Wednesday afternoon explosion at Eden Center sent fire trucks and ambulances rushing to the Falls Church shopping mall, home to some of the area’s most popular Vietnamese restaurants and shops. Businesses not affected by the fire such as Huong Viet* and Rice Paper are open as usual.
Eden Center explosion instagram video MT @marable_tyler: getting pho, felt explosion. http://t.co/UtAsHtwxPc @wusa9 pic.twitter.com/f5p5FAh0Yq
— Russ Ptacek, WUSA9 (@RussPtacek) January 14, 2015
WUSA reports that one person is known to be injured. The cause of the explosion, originally thought to be gunfire, is still unknown. The resulting blaze destroyed a jewelry store, according to NBC. We’ll update when more information becomes available.
*An earlier version of this post incorrectly named Four Sisters as one of Eden Center’s businesses. We apologize for the confusion.
Anna Spiegel covers the dining and drinking scene in her native DC. Prior to joining Washingtonian in 2010, she attended the French Culinary Institute and Columbia University’s MFA program in New York, and held various cooking and writing positions in NYC and in St. John, US Virgin Islands.
