Heartbreaking details emerge about 2 men who are missing after a blast that rocked New York's East Village

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Nicholas Figueroa

Facebook via The New York Times

A Facebook photo of Nicholas Figueroa.

Two young men are still missing nearly two days after an explosion and massive fire caused chaos in New York City's East Village.

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Authorities and family members are still searching for Ismael Locón Yac, a 27-year-old Guatemalan immigrant, and Nicholas Figueroa, a 23-year-old who was having a lunch date where Yac worked as a busboy.

Yac had been in the US for seven years and rented a room in Queens, where he had a poster of the Empire State building and a framed New Yorker drawing of a cat looking at the cityscape, The New York Times reported.

"I have a strong pain in my heart because I haven't seen him in a day," his cousin, Pablo Yac, told The Times on Friday night. "I have a pain in my heart - for him and for the other families who don't know where their loved ones are."

On Thursday afternoon when the explosion happened, Figueroa took a coworker to lunch at Sushi Park. A bank statement showed that he paid his $13.04 bill before the blast, according to The Times.

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"It's just frustrating that we don't have concrete details as to where my brother is," his brother, Brandon Figueroa, 21, told The Times. "I'm emotional, and we don't know what's in the future."

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