Reports from U.S. over 15 people have reportedly been killed in a massive explosion at a fertilizer plant near Waco, in Texas state on Wednesday.
Hundreds have been injured, leaving the factory a smoldering ruin and leveling buildings for blocks in every direction.
The explosion at West Fertilizer in downtown West, a community about 20 miles north of Waco, happened around 7 p.m. and could be heard as far away as Waxahachie, 45 miles to the north.
It sent flames shooting high into the night sky and rained burning embers, shrapnel and debris down on shocked and frightened residents.
A member of the city council, Al Vanek, said a four-block area around the explosion 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.
Although authorities said it will be some time before they know the full extent of the loss of life, Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman D.L. Wilson said just after midnight that an unknown number of people had died and more than 100 were injured.
West Mayor Tommy Muska told reporters that his city of about 2,800 residents needs “your prayers.”
A search for survivors continued throughout the night, as emergency workers went house to house and business to business looking for people trapped in the rubble.
“We’ve got a lot of people who are hurt, and there’s a lot of people, I’m sure, who aren’t gonna be here tomorrow,” Muska said.
“We’re gonna search for everybody. We’re gonna make sure everybody’s accounted for. That’s the most important thing right now.”
The town’s volunteer firefighters responded to a call at the plant about 6 p.m., said Waco police Sgt. William Patrick Swanton.
Muska was among them, and he and his colleagues were working to evacuate the area around the plant when the blast followed about 50 minutes later.
Muska said it knocked off his fire helmet and blew out the doors and windows of his nearby home.
Five or six volunteer firefighters were at the plant fire when the explosion happened, Muska said, and not all have been accounted for.
Wilson 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.
Dozens of emergency vehicles amassed at the scene in the hours after the blast, as fires continued to smolder in the ruins of the plant and in several surrounding buildings.
Aerial footage showed injured people being treated on the flood-lit football field that had been turned into a staging area.
{startribune}
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