Rescuers Search Wreckage of Fertilizer Plant Explosion (Video)

18 Apr, 2013

WEST, Texas— 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 or bodies of the dead. The accident killed as many as 15 people and injured more than 160 others.

Daylight revealed a breathtaking band of destruction extending for a four- or five-block radius around the West Fertilizer Co. in the small community of West, about 20 miles north of Waco. The blast shook the ground with the strength of a small earthquake and leveled homes, apartments, a school and a nursing home. Its dull boom could be heard dozens of miles away.

Waco police Sgt. William Patrick Swanton described ongoing search-and-rescue efforts as “tedious and time-consuming,” noting crews had to shore up much of the wreckage before going in.

Searchers “have not gotten to the point of no return where they don’t think that there’s anybody still alive,” Swanton said. He did not know how many people had been rescued.

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 Wednesday night explosion rained burning embers and debris down on terrified residents. Morning exposed a landscape wrapped in acrid smoke and strewn with the shattered remains of buildings, furniture and personal belongings.

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 and Firearms.

The precise death toll was uncertain. Three to five volunteer firefighters were believed to be among the dead, which authorities said could number as many as 15. But that was merely an estimate.

AP

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