(Reuters) An explosion destroyed a Falcon 9 rocket belonging to Elon Musk’s SpaceX during routine test firing at Cape Canaveral in Florida on Thursday, shaking buildings miles (km) away and sending a thick plume of black smoke pouring into the air.

SpaceX said there were no injuries but that an “anomaly” during the static fire test resulted in the loss of the rocket and the Israeli communications satellite it had been due to carry into space at the weekend.

The large blast shook the launch pad leased by SpaceX at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station just after 9 a.m. ET.

People in buildings several miles from the facility wrote on social media that they felt the explosion, but local authorities said residents were not at risk.

“There is NO threat to general public from catastrophic abort during static test fire at SpaceX launch pad,” the Brevard County Emergency Management Office said in a tweet.

Robin Seemangal, a space reporter with the Observer newspaper, quoted a source at the facility who told him it felt like the building they were in had been hit by lightning.

“We actually thought the building was collapsing, it shook us so bad,” Seemangal wrote in a tweet, quoting his source.

SpaceX had been due to launch its 29th Falcon 9 rocket before dawn on Saturday, carrying into orbit the AMOS-6 communications satellite owned by Israel’s Space Communication.

Reuters