Scotland Yard grills Spacey in sex cases

An explosion that rocked a vacant pizza place at a South Florida strip mall left 23 people injured, police said.

Dozens of first responders flocked to The Fountains mall in Plantation, about 6 miles west of Fort Lauderdale, just after noon. They found the restaurant nearly demolished, and an adjacent gym damaged.

One of the injured people is in critical condition, police said at an afternoon news conference. A ruptured gas line is a possible culprit.

The blast was powerful enough to fling debris across the street from the complex.

“We thought it was thunder at first, and then we felt the building shake and things started falling,” said Alex Carver, who works at a deli across the street. “I looked outside and it was almost like the world was ending. It was nuts, man. It was crazy.”

The restaurant, Pizza Fire, had been out of business for several months. Only part of its frame was left standing. Windows were blown out at the adjacent LA Fitness. Kevin Spacey is facing sexual assault allegations both stateside and abroad and was questioned by Scotland Yard concerning the latter, according to a new report.

Scotland Yard, London’s Metropolitan Police Service, received claims that Spacey, 59, sexually assaulted six men between 1996 and 2013, Variety reported Saturday.

“In May 2019, a man was voluntarily interviewed under caution in America, by officers from the Met’s Complex Case Team,” the force said in its statement to Variety. “He was not arrested. Inquiries are ongoing.”

In Britain, the phrase “under caution” means the subject was informed of his rights, Variety noted.

The now-disgraced Oscar winner has not been formally charged for the U.K. allegations, the first of which was made in 2017.

Spacey spent years in London, serving as artistic director of The Old Vic theater from 2003 to 2015.

In a suit filed last week, a man alleged that the “American Beauty” star was “touching and fondling” him in July 2016 at a bar in Massachusetts.