WEST, Texas, Apr 20: Investigators sifted through debris to pinpoint the cause of a Texas fertilizer plant explosion that obliterated parts of a small town and killed at least 14 people, including volunteer firefighters who raced to the scene to douse a blaze.
There was no indication of foul play in the fire or the blast it triggered on Wednesday at West Fertilizer Co, a privately owned retail facility that was last inspected two years ago, authorities said yesterday.
The farm supply business, located at the edge of a residential area in West, a town about 80 miles (130 km) south of Dallas, had notified a state agency that it stored potentially combustible ammonium nitrate on the site.
Mayor Tommy Muska told a news conference the confirmed death toll had risen to 14, based on the number of victims whose remains had been recovered from the vicinity of the blast. Authorities said 200 people were injured.
Among the dead were five volunteer firefighters from the town of West, as well as four paramedics, a retired firefighter who was assisting the volunteer squad and a Dallas fire captain who lived in West and responded to the scene, the mayor said.
US Senator John Cornyn of Texas said the town’s deputy fire marshal told him that 60 people remained unaccounted for. But he said that number was expected to drop as individuals turn up at area hospitals or with relatives and others, some of them outside of town.
“I would just take that (number) with a grain of caution,” Cornyn said.
The majority of the confirmed dead were emergency personnel who responded to a fire and likely were killed by the ensuing blast, which was so powerful it registered as a magnitude 2.1 earthquake.
It left a devastated landscape, gutting a 50-unit apartment complex, demolishing about 50 houses and battering a nursing home and schools. Dozens more homes were reported to have been damaged.
The ruins of nearly 175 homes and other buildings left badly damaged or destroyed had been searched and “cleared” as of Friday afternoon as rescue teams combed wrecked structures for people who might have been trapped, officials said.
After touring the scene on Friday, Governor Rick Perry told reporters he was advised that “the search and rescue phase is complete.” Asked whether that meant no more survivors were expected to be found, he said he did not know enough to comment.
The precise origins of the disaster remained a mystery as agents from the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives began investigating the blast site on Friday to collect debris and other evidence that may point to a cause.
The explosion was one of a series of events that put Americans on edge this week, starting with the Boston Marathon bombings and the discovery of poisoned letters addressed to President Barack Obama and a Republican senator.
Obama issued an emergency declaration for Texas on Friday authorizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to mobilize any resources it needed necessary to help the state cope with the aftermath of the fertilizer plant blast.
“I want them to know that they are not forgotten,” Obama said in an appearance in the White House briefing room. “All in all, this has been a tough week.”
(AGENCIES)
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