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A fire early Friday destroyed a New Jersey shore motel that was housing people displaced
by Superstorm Sandy, killing four people and injuring eight, authorities said.
The blaze erupted at the wooden Mariner's Cove Motor Inn in this popular summer resort
town at around 5:30 a.m., and flames were shooting out the building by the time firefighters
arrived. At least one person leaped from a second-floor window to escape.
Three people were injured critically. Other injuries included broken bones.
The discovery of a fourth victim was announced Friday afternoon just before firefighters
removed the body on a stretcher. Authorities said all remaining occupants had been accounted
for after hours of visiting hospitals, motels and other locations to track down other survivors.
The victims were identified as male adults, but the prosecutor's office said no positive
identifications had been made and the cause of the blaze was unknown.
After the bodies were slid on stretchers down ladders to the ground, investigators brought
out dogs specially trained to react to the presence of gasoline or other petroleum products
that might have been used to start or accelerate a fire. The dogs sniffed at charred items
and building debris at the curb and alongside the motel's outdoor swimming pool, but showed
no obvious reaction to anything. Task Force One, New Jersey's elite urban search
and rescue team that has responded to disaster scenes around the world, also joined the investigation,
which was expected to take days. The blaze was the second major fire at the
Jersey shore in seven months, following a September blaze that destroyed about a third
of the boardwalk in Seaside Heights and Seaside Park. The boardwalk had just been rebuilt
after Sandy. It is now being rebuilt — again. Survivors of Friday's motel fire described
a chaotic scene of flames, smoke and screaming.