Welcome, Guest: Register On Nairaland / LOGIN! / Trending / Recent / NewStats: 3,195,352 members, 7,957,938 topics. Date: Wednesday, 25 September 2024 at 04:14 AM |
Nairaland Forum / Nairaland / General / Fertilizer Explosion In Texas Injures At Least 100 (684 Views)
Burnt Person Runs Out Of Chickason Gas Plant Explosion In Anambra (Video) / Graphics Pics Of The Gas Explosion In Port-harcourt Two Days Ago (2) (3) (4)
(1) (Reply)
Fertilizer Explosion In Texas Injures At Least 100 by pauloman(m): 6:30am On Apr 18, 2013 |
An explosion at a fertilizer plant near Waco, Texas, Wednesday night has caused an unconfirmed number of deaths and injured at least a hundred people, leaving the factory a smouldering ruin and causing major damage to surrounding buildings. The blast at West Fertilizer in West, a community about 30 kilometres north of Waco, happened shortly before 8 p.m. local time and could be heard as far away as Waxahachie, 70 kilometres to the north. “We have a tremendous amount of injuries, probably over 100 injuries at this time,” said D.L. Wilson, a trooper with the Texas Department of Safety. “We do have confirmed fatalities. The number is not current yet and it could go up by the minute,” he said. Aerial footage showed fires still smouldering in the ruins of the plant and in several surrounding buildings, and people being treated for injuries on the flood-lit local football field, which had been turned into a staging area for emergency responders. Tommy Muska, West's mayor, said at a news conference three hours after the explosion that he didn't yet know how many people had been injured or killed. He said buildings in a five-block radius from the plant were severely damaged by the explosion. Glenn A. Robinson, the chief executive of Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center in Waco, told CNN that his hospital had received 66 injured people for treatment, including 38 who were seriously hurt. He said the injuries included blast injuries, orthopedic injuries, large wounds and a lot of cuts. The hospital has set up a hotline for families of the victims to get information, he said. Robinson did not immediately return messages from The Associated Press. Debby Marak told The Associated Press that when she finished teaching her religion class Wednesday night, she noticed a lot of smoke in the area across town near the plant, which is near a nursing home. She said she drove over to see what was happening, and that when she got there, two boys came running toward her screaming that the authorities ordered everyone out because the plant was going to explode. She said she drove about a block when the blast happened. "It was like being in a tornado," Marak, 58, said by phone. "Stuff was flying everywhere. It blew out my windshield." "It was like the whole Earth shook." She drove 10 blocks and called her husband and asked him to come get her. When they got to their home about three kilometres south of town, her husband told her what he'd seen: a huge fireball that rose like "a mushroom cloud." Fires smouldering 2 hours after blast More than two hours after the blast, there were still fires smouldering in what was left of the plant and in others burning nearby. The roof of what appeared to be a housing complex of some kind had collapsed. In aerial footage from Dallas's NBC affiliate, WDFW, dozens of emergency vehicles could be seen amassed at the scene. Entry into West was slow going, as the roads were jammed with emergency vehicles rushing in to help out. Authorities set up a staging area on the local high school's football field, which was lit up with floodlights. Ambulances and several dozen injured people could be seen being taken away or seated in wheelchairs as they are treated and await transport. Department of Public Safety troopers were using their squad cars to transport those injured by the blast and fire at the plant in West, a community north of Waco, Gayle Scarbrough, a spokeswoman for the department's Waco office, told television station KWTX. She said six helicopters were also en route to help out. American Red Cross crews from across Texas were being sent to the site, the organization said. Red Cross spokeswoman Anita Foster said the group was working with emergency management officials in West to find a safe shelter for residents displaced from their homes. She said teams from Austin to Dallas and elsewhere are being sent to the community north of Waco. A West Fire Department dispatcher said any casualties would be transported to hospitals in Waco, which is about 140 kilometres north of Austin. The explosion knocked out power to many area customers and could be heard and felt for miles around. Brad Smith, who lives 70 kilometres north of West in Waxahachie, told the station that he and his wife heard what sounded like a thunderclap. 'It sounded like 3 bombs' Lydia Zimmerman, told KWTX that she, her husband and daughter were in their garden in Bynum, 20 kilometres from West, when they heard multiple blasts. "It sounded like three bombs going off very close to us," she said. Rafael Abreu, a geophysicist with National Earthquake Information Center of the U.S. Geological Survey, said the explosion did not register on a seismograph because most of the blast's energy dissipated in the atmosphere. In 2001, an explosion at a chemical plant killed 31 people and injured more than 2,000 in Toulouse, France. The blast occurred in a hangar containing 300 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, which can be used for both fertilizer and explosives. The explosion came 10 days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the U.S., and raised fears at the time it was linked. A 2006 report blamed the blast on negligence. With files from CBC News © The Associated Press, 2013 MobileFacebook PodcastsTwitter Alerts Newsletter www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/04/17/fertilizer-explosion-waco-texas.html?cmp=fbtl |
Re: Fertilizer Explosion In Texas Injures At Least 100 by pauloman(m): 7:02am On Apr 18, 2013 |
What is with the US...only days back it was the Boston bomblast issue and now this...?! |
(1) (Reply)
Pastor Impregnate Six Married Women. / Yahoo Log In Tussle / BRT Commences E-ticketing Tomorrow
(Go Up)
Sections: politics (1) business autos (1) jobs (1) career education (1) romance computers phones travel sports fashion health religion celebs tv-movies music-radio literature webmasters programming techmarket Links: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) Nairaland - Copyright © 2005 - 2024 Oluwaseun Osewa. All rights reserved. See How To Advertise. 15 |