Chemical explosion toll 2; 22 missing

Press, 26 October 1989, Page 9

Chemical explosion toll 2; 22 missing

NZPA-Reuter

Houston

Rescuers searching through the wreckage of a giant plastics plant torn apart by an explosion on Tuesday found the body of a second worker yesterday.

Officials said 22 missing employees were feared dead.

Three huge explosions destroyed the plant, owned by Phillips Petroleum Corporation. A fierce fire burnt out of control for eight hours. .

The plant in Houston was in virtual ruins, the ground strewn with twisted pipelines and charred steel beams. A wisp of smoke still rose from the blackened superstructure. The area around the centre of the explosion — a reactor where ethylene is made into plastic — was flattened. The missing employees were thought to be working near the reactor when the blast occurred, said the official.

“If an employee was in that heavily damaged portion of the plant when the accident took place, then that person would probably not have survived,” said Phillips’ president, Glenn Cox.

Company officials said 22 missing employees were feared dead because of the devastation and the county sheriff said it could take a month to find all the victims. Another official said. 124 people were injured in the blast.

The explosion, which was caused when hydrocarbon vapour leaked from the plant and was ignited, damaged more

than half the plant.

Polyethylene, polypropylene and K-resins, all plastics or plasticsrelated materials, were manufactured at the plant. The plant was closed after the explosion and workers were told not to report to work until further notice.

The company official said he could not estimate how much it would cost to rebuild the plant. Survivors said they had less than half a minute’s warning to get out of the plant after a reactor began leaking flammable gas that ignited in a huge fireball.

“I thought it was the end,” said Billy Ridenour, aged 35, a plant worker. “I was thinking: ‘Run till you die’.”

A thin column of smoke, was rising from the plant this morning as several members of an emergency response team went inside.

“It was like somebody just dropped an atomic bomb,” said Kelly Manerly, a pipefitter at the plant, which makes two million kilograms a day of plastics like those used in milk jugs and toys.

The blasts buckled a ceiling and blew out cafeteria windows at an elementary school about I.6km away. No-one was injured, but the school’s 700 pupils were sent home.