Bible Survives Deadly New York City Blast

The deadly explosion that leveled two New York City apartment buildings in East Harlem last week left a decades-old Bible unscathed. Workers found the treasured antique in the rubble.

Several members of the 80-year-old Spanish Christian Church expressed shock and joy when they learned the Bible miraculously didn't go up in flames.

"I thank God. It was wonderful. I really didn't think that anything that was paper would survive," Carmen Vargas-Rosa, the church's financial secretary, said.

Rev. Thomas Perez was so overwhelmed when they found the holy book he had to be taken to the hospital because he was having chest pains.

"When he saw this Bible, that's when he had the palpitations," Letitia James, the city's public advocate, said. "Through all of the rubble, through all of the destruction, his Book survived.

Five church members are among the eight people who died in Wednesday's blast.