A power outage at UC Berkeley prefaced a major explosion on Monday night, resulting in a campus-wide evacuation. The fire, it seems, stemmed from a vault under California Hall close to the center of campus, with the initial blast reportedly shooting up in the air some 20-40 feet.

Eyewitness Peter Myers notes, "There was an explosion at about 6:40, followed instantly by fireball coming out of a manhole cover that came about 30-40 feet high. I guess that was the old generator they were talking about." While Cal sophomore Jennifer Han explains to The Daily Californian, "At first, I was really scared because I thought the explosion was big enough to produce a shock wave ... You heard it first, and then there were flames."

The Daily Californian has more:

According to [UCPD Lt. Marc DeCoulode], the explosion appears to be related to vandalism discovered by the campus late last week. Vandals were stealing or attempting to steal copper grounding wire from an electrical system not readily visible, and the damage appears to be more extensive than initially believed, he said.

After the explosion appeared to come from a manhole grate, campus police advised students to stay away from any manholes on campus. Officials are not allowing anyone to enter the campus and have instructed everyone to evacuate through the north and west entrances.

At least one student was whisked to a nearby hospital to be treated for minor injuries. A handful of others had to be rescued from elevators that stopped during the outage.

Below, the jarring blaze shooting from the vault:

The campus remains closed as of tonight. No word yet as to whether or not classes will resume on Tuesday.

UPDATE: Updates regarding class schedule will happen early tomorrow morning (Oct. 1) at around 5 AM. We're also hearing word, via commenter Michael Ball, that the campus has reopened.

UPDATE II: Things are back to normal, more or less, with only 11 buildings sans power. Most classes have resumed.

[Chron]
[Daily Cal]
[SF Appeal]