Extra

A power system failure knocked out power at the University of California at Berkeley and led to an explosion in the center of the campus, emergency officials said. 

The campus was evacuated as smoke clouded the academic buildings, but as of 8 p.m. the fire was nearly extinguished and some services were being restored, campus officials said. 

The power outage started earlier in the evening and as firefighters and police were responding an explosion rocked the central campus near the Campanile shortly before 7 p.m., Berkeley acting fire Chief Gil Dong said. 

The explosion was linked to the earlier outage and both stemmed from a power system failure, campus officials said. 

The campus was ordered to evacuate but some were trapped in elevators. One student was taken to a hospital with minor injuries and two other people were injured but declined to be taken to the hospital, campus officials said. 

Everyone trapped in elevators had been rescued as of shortly after 8:30 p.m., according to UC Berkeley. 

UC Berkeley has not yet announced the status of classes for Tuesday and the campus remains closed tonight. 

CONTACT: UC Berkeley emergency information line (800) 705-9998 for further information