Search and rescue teams continue to search for survivors today after a massive explosion at a fertilizer plant in Waco, Texas, which police say has killed between five and 15 people and injured another 160 according to early estimates.
"There are homes levelled, there are businesses levelled, there is massive devastation in the downtown West area," Waco police Sgt. William Patrick Swanton said Thursday morning. He said the number of killed and injured was based on initial data and might rise later in the day.
The massive blast, which sent flames shooting into the sky and rained burning embers, shrapnel and other debris, occurred on Wednesday evening about 30 minutes after firefighters had been called to battle a blaze at the West Fertilizer Co. plant in West, a community of 2,800 about 30 kilometres north of Waco.
The explosion happened just before 8 p.m. CT and could be heard as far away as Waxahachie, 70 kilometres to the north. Ground motion from the blast registered as a 2.1-magnitude earthquake, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Swanton said there are a number of missing people, including between three and four firefighters. A law enforcement officer, who is also a volunteer firefighter, was initially among the missing but was located at a hospital with serious injuries, he said.
Swanton said authorities do not know if anyone is still trapped in the rubble around the plant but officials are still actively searching for injured people.
"At some point, unfortunately, yes we will move into that recovery mode but we're not there yet," he said at a briefing Thursday morning.
Swanton said that the concussion of the blast "literally destroyed homes" around the fertilizer plant.
West Mayor Tommy Muska said between 50 and 60 homes in a five-block radius had been heavily damaged.
Muska was among the firefighters, and he and his colleagues were working to evacuate the area around the plant when it exploded. Muska said it knocked off his fire helmet and blew out the doors and windows of his nearby home.
"I ask for your prayers," Muska said at a press conference early Thursday morning.
'Totally decimated'
The explosion that struck shortly before 8 p.m. levelled a four-block area around the plant that a member of the city council, Al Vanek, said was "totally decimated." Other witnesses compared the scene to that of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and authorities said the plant made materials similar to that used to fuel the bomb that tore apart that city's Murrah Federal Building.
In the hours after the blast, many of the town's residents wandered the dark and windy streets searching for shelter. Among them was Julie Zahirniako, who said she and her son, Anthony, had been playing at a school playground near the fertilizer plant when the explosion hit.
The blast threw her son in the air, breaking his ribs. She said she saw people running from the nursing home and the roof of the school lifted into the air.
"The fire was so high," she said. "It was just as loud as it could be. The ground and everything was shaking."
The town's volunteer firefighters had responded to a call and due to the plant's chemical stockpile, "they realized the seriousness of what they had," Swanton said.
The main fire was under control as of 11 p.m., but residents were urged to remain indoors because of the threat of new explosions or leaks of ammonia from the plant's ruins.
West Mayor Tommy Muska said between 50 and 60 homes had been damaged by the explosion. (LM Otero/Associated Press) Swanton said several fires at the plant and nearby homes are still smouldering but there appears to be no concern about air quality.
"I can tell you there is nothing out of control there at this point, meaning there is no fire out of control, there is no chemical escape from the fertilizer plant that is out of control," he said.
Authorities are treating the area as a crime scene until they can determine whether it was an industrial accident, Swanton said.
"Nothing at this point indicates that we have criminal activity," he said. "However, we are not ruling that out."
Swanton also said that there had been a small amount of looting in the cordoned off area around the plant but could not say if anyone had been arrested.
Dozens of emergency vehicles were massed at the scene in the hours after the blast, as fires continued to smoulder in the ruins of the plant and in several surrounding buildings. Aerial footage showed injured people being treated on the floodlit football field that had been turned into a staging area.
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board said it was deploying a large investigation team to West.
There were no immediate details available from police on the number of people who work at the plant, which was cited by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality in 2006 for failing to obtain or to qualify for a permit. The agency acted after receiving a complaint in June of that year of a strong ammonia smell.
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