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| A firefighter stands on a rail line and surveys the remains of a fertilizer plant destroyed by an explosion in West, Texas, Thursday, April 18, 2013. A massive explosion at the West Fertilizer Co. killed as many as 15 people and injured more than 160, officials said overnight. |
WEST, Texas
(AP) -- Rescuers searched the smoking remnants of a Texas farm town
Thursday for survivors of a thunderous fertilizer plant explosion,
gingerly checking smashed houses and apartments for anyone still trapped
in debris while the community awaited word on the number of dead.
Initial
reports put the fatalities as high as 15, but later in the day,
authorities backed away from any estimate and refused to elaborate. More
than 160 people were hurt.
A breathtaking
band of destruction extended for blocks around the West Fertilizer Co.
in the small community of West. The blast shook the ground with the
strength of a small earthquake and crumpled dozens of homes, an
apartment complex, a school and a nursing home. Its dull boom could be
heard dozens of miles away from the town about 20 miles north of Waco.
Waco
police Sgt. William Patrick Swanton described ongoing search-and-rescue
efforts as "tedious and time-consuming," noting that crews had to shore
up much of the wreckage before going in.
There
was no indication the blast, which sent up a mushroom-shaped plume of
smoke and left behind a crater, was anything other than an industrial
accident, he said.
The explosion was
apparently touched off by a fire, but there was no indication what
sparked the blaze. The company had been cited by regulators for what
appeared to be minor safety and permitting violations over the past
decade.
The Wednesday night explosion rained
burning embers and debris down on terrified residents. The landscape
Thursday was wrapped in acrid smoke and strewn with the shattered
remains of buildings, furniture and personal belongings.
Firefighter Darryl Hall choked up as he described the search.
"You're
strong through it because that's your job. That's what you've been
trained to do. But you're reminded of the tragedy and your family. And
that it could be you," Hall said. "Then it's a completely different
story."
While the community tended to its deep
wounds, investigators awaited clearance to enter the blast zone for
clues to what set off the plant's huge stockpile of volatile chemicals.
"It's
still too hot to get in there," said Franceska Perot, a spokeswoman for
the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, later adding
that she wasn't sure when her team would be able to start its
investigation.
The precise death toll was
uncertain. Three to five volunteer firefighters initially were believed
to be among the dead, which authorities said could number as many as 15.
But the state Department of Public Safety later said the number of
fatalities couldn't be confirmed.
The Dallas
Fire-Rescue Department said one of its off-duty firefighters, Capt.
Kenny Harris, was among those killed. Harris - a 52-year-old married
father of three grown sons - lived in West and had decided to lend a
hand to the volunteers battling the blaze.
The
many injuries included broken bones, cuts and bruises, respiratory
problems and minor burns. A few people were reported in intensive care
and several more in critical condition.
First-responders
evacuated 133 patients from the nursing home, some in wheelchairs. Many
were dazed and panicked and did not know what happened.
William
Burch and his wife, a retired Air Force nurse, entered the damaged
nursing home before first-responders arrived. They searched separate
wings and found residents in wheelchairs trapped in their rooms. The
halls were dark, and the ceilings had collapsed. Water filled the
hallways. Electrical wires hung eerily from the ceilings.
"They had Sheetrock that was on top of them. You had to remove that," Burch said. It was "completely chaotic."
Gov.
Rick Perry called the explosion "a truly nightmare scenario for the
community" and said he had been in touch with President Barack Obama,
who promised his administration's assistance with operations on the
ground.
Authorities said the plant handles
both the fertilizers anhydrous ammonia and ammonium nitrate, the latter
of which was used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and several other
attacks, such as the first bombing attempt at the World Trade Center in
1993.
Ammonium nitrate makes big explosions,
be they accidental or intentional, said Neil Donahue, professor of
chemistry at Carnegie Mellon University. It is stable, but if its
components are heated up sufficiently, they break apart in a runaway
explosive chemical reaction, he said.
"The
hotter it is, the faster the reaction will happen," he said. "That
really happens almost instantaneously, and that's what gives the
tremendous force of the explosion."
About a
half-hour before the blast, the town's volunteer firefighters had
responded to a call at the plant, Swanton said. They immediately
realized the potential for disaster because of the plant's chemical
stockpile and began evacuating the surrounding area.
The blast happened 20 minutes later.
The
U.S. Chemical Safety Board was deploying a large investigation team to
West. The ATF team that investigates all large fires and explosions was
bringing fire investigators, certified explosives specialists, chemists,
canines and forensic specialists. American Red Cross crews were helping
evacuated residents.
Records reviewed by The
Associated Press show the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety
Administration fined West Fertilizer $10,000 last summer for safety
violations that included planning to transport anhydrous ammonia without
a security plan. An inspector also found the plant's ammonia tanks
weren't properly labeled.
The government
accepted $5,250 after the company took what it described as corrective
actions, the records show. It is not unusual for companies to negotiate
lower fines with regulators.
In a
risk-management plan filed with the Environmental Protection Agency
about a year earlier, the company said it was not handling flammable
materials and did not have sprinklers, water-deluge systems, blast
walls, fire walls or other safety mechanisms in place at the plant.
State
officials require all facilities that handle anhydrous ammonia to have
sprinklers and other safety measures because it is a flammable
substance, according to Mike Wilson, head of air permitting for the
Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
But
inspectors would not necessarily check for such mechanisms, and it's
not known whether they did when the West plant was last inspected in
2006, said Ramiro Garcia, head of enforcement and compliance.
That
inspection followed a complaint about a strong ammonia smell, which the
company resolved by obtaining a new permit, said the commission's
executive director Zak Covar. He said no other complaints had been filed
with the state since then, so there haven't been additional
inspections.
A woman who answered the phone at
the home of plant owner Don R. Adair said he wasn't feeling well and
would not be available for comment.
The
federal Chemical Safety Board has not investigated a fertilizer plant
explosion before, but Managing Director Daniel Horowitz said
"fertilizers have been involved in some of the most severe accidents of
the past century."
He noted the 2001 explosion
at a chemical and fertilizer plant that killed 31 people and injured
more than 2,000 in Toulouse, France. The blast in a hangar containing
300 tons of ammonium nitrate came 10 days after the Sept. 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks, raising fears at the time that the two could be
linked. A 2006 report blamed the blast on negligence.
Horowitz
also mentioned a disaster in Texas City in 1947, when a cargo ship
holding more than 2,000 tons of ammonium nitrate caught fire and
exploded, killing more than 500 people.
