Running for their lives:

Witnesses describe the scene, fleeing the flames and trying to pick up the pieces after the chaos.

Duong Lau saw the first haze of smoke drifting through the air while returning from the grocery store. By the time he got to his Jordan Park neighborhood home in San Francisco, he instantly knew nothing could be saved.

Lau watched in horror Wednesday as 40-foot flames engulfed the six-bedroom apartment above Hong Kong Lounge II at Geary Boulevard and Parker Avenue. His wife and his daughter-in-law, who were home when the fire broke out, were able to race down the stairs of the building and onto the street before the flames overtook the building.

“The winds just whipped the flames toward our home,” Lau said Thursday, speaking in Cantonese.

The blaze erupted at 1:18 p.m. a day earlier outside Hong Kong Lounge II, a popular dim sum restaurant, when eight construction workers hit a natural gas main while digging to install fiberoptic cables, said San Francisco Fire Chief Joanne HayesWhite.

On Thursday, displaced residents and workers returned to the neighborhood to survey the damage. Lau was still wearing the jeans and jacket he had worn the day before to the grocery store. His home was blackened as crews started sawing sheets of plywood to prepare the building for potential rain this weekend.

“I don’t feel great about this,” he said, staring at the remains of the home he had lived in for 38 years.

Lau and his wife, among dozens initially displaced by the blaze, were preparing to speak with city officials in hopes of finding alternate housing. In the meantime, they were staying with his wife’s family elsewhere in the city.

Witnesses to the explosion and ensuing two-hour fire described a chaotic scene following the blast. Hong Kong Lounge II was packed with nearly 50 people when the gas line exploded.

Kristy Chan, 42, had just finished eating when the flames broke out. She was sitting next to the window on Geary Boulevard when a soft hiss filled the air. At first, Chan attributed the shaking of the restaurant to the construction work outside.

The window’s glass didn’t break, but she could feel the heat from the blaze.

Chan’s waiter looked outside, and the next thing she knew people were panicking and searching for an escape. The restaurant’s owner and two waiters guided the diners — mostly seniors and children — to the kitchen in the back. The front of the building was already on fire, and the only exit was through the rear.

One of the waiters stayed behind until every patron had safely crowded into the back of the kitchen, said Chan, who was terrified the fire would spread to the interior of the restaurant.

“You knew something happened close to you, but you didn’t know if it would explode inside,” she said. “The unknown was the piece that was scary.”

Four residential and commercial buildings were damaged by the blaze. A reported fifth building is attached to the Hong Kong Lounge II’s property, said Tom Hui, the director of the Department of Building Inspection.

“The corner had extensive damage and the roof was burned out,” he said, referring to the restaurant.

A nearby H&R Block office suffered water damage, as did the adjacent building.

Back near the source of the explosion Thursday, the door to Hong Kong Lounge II was still ajar. City inspectors stood across the street, jotting down notes about the charred wreckage.

Standing among small piles of broken glass, Donald Cutler, 36, counted himself lucky. The only damage to his home, across from the blaze, was a broken door when police barged in to evacuate residents.

Doug Styles, 54, the executive director of Huckleberry Youth Services, spent the morning surveying the damage to the organization’s beige headquarters next door to Hong Kong Lounge II.

Nearly 3 inches of water accumulated in the basement where Huckleberry’s computer equipment was stored. The first and second floors of the building also had water damage, and the roof was riddled with holes caused by the flames.

Though the administrative offices and youth services programs could be moved to another location, Styles said, many artifacts dating to the Summer of Love in 1967 were housed in the building.

“We need to figure out what’s salvageable,” he said.