I am sure this made people a bit nervous

(CBS) NEW YORK What was the scene of New York City's hustle and bustle during Wednesday afternoon's rush hour in the Midtown East section of Manhattan turned into a ghost town after a steam pipe exploded on 41st Street and Lexington Avenue, leaving a giant crater in the middle of the intersection, and surrounding buildings covered in soot, their windows blown out from the impact.

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Officials are warning residents to avoid the scene and treat the area as if "there was asbestos in the air."

Chunks of road, mud, and debris surround a red tow truck that sits all but destroyed in the middle of the crater, said to be anywhere from 50 to 100 feet in diameter, where Mayor Michael Bloomberg says a 24 inch steam pipe built in 1924 burst, perhaps due to cold water from the rain or an unknown water main break.

Nicole Frielich was on the 15th floor of the building where she works at 370 Lexington Avenue, located on the corner of 41st Street, when the explosion occurred. She says employees in her office became alarmed after there was a thunderous clap and the building began shaking as if there was an earthquake.

"All you could see out the window was a muddy, brownish-gray, debris hitting the window. It was very powerful. After the initial explosion you could still feel the building was continually just shaking," she told CBS 2 HD.

"We immediately ran into the hallway and everybody evacuated into the stairwell. ... It was just mayhem, there was no direction, no one knew what to do. When got down to the main floor there were two people off the street, it was completely eerie like out of a photo of 9/11, they were just covered from head to toe in mud, black and brownish gray, bleeding. Everyone was hysterical, everyone was just yelling," Frielich added.

The mass hysteria stretched outside for blocks, where residents and employees ran in fear, unsure as to whether the city had been under attack. Sirens blared northbound along 3rd Avenue for hours as emergency vehicles pushed through the gridlock that tied up nearly every lane during the busy 6 o'clock hour.

At the Canal Street subway station in downtown Manhattan, Mike Wexler was waiting to head north on the 6-train when the subway operator first made an announcement that service was halted, but due to a building collapse on 42nd Street, and not an explosion.

"I was standing on the platorm when the made the announcement, and I immediately had a heightened state of alert," he told wcbstv.com. "It's not something you hear everyday."

Minutes later, Wexler says passengers who were forced to walk uptown whispered of what was then described as an explosion, and not a collapse.

Back uptown, buildings adjacent to the site of the explosion had shattered windows, their walls covered in the brownish-gray hue that Frielich described.

Moments after the explosion a tornado-like cloud rose from the crater, with a billowing belt of steam furiously blowing into the sky. The steam cloud could be seen for miles, and there were concerns of asbestos contaminating the air by the scene.

A school bus sat near the crater, emptied, with book bags strewn along the floor.

Police officers and utility crew wore face masks, residents covered their faces with shirts or other pieces of clothing. Those covered in the debris and soot were forced to be decontaminated due to the asbestos concerns.

There were numerous reports of injuries, with some suffering severe burns, others suffering broken bones. One woman was taken to Bellevue Hospital and was later pronounced dead after apparently having a heart attack likely due to the shock of the explosion.

An estimate to the amount of damage caused has not been given, but it will likely take millions of dollars in repairs and several months to fix the pipes, the streets, and the surrounding buildings. It's anyone's guess as to how long the crater that now stretches across 41st Street will take to be filled.

And of course it could take even longer for many -- especially those who were directly affected by the attacks on 9/11 -- to erase the terrifying images that most New Yorkers likely first thought of something far worse.