Twelve confirmed dead in Texas explosion
Twelve people are known to have been killed and 200 injured in the huge explosion at a fertiliser plant in Texas.
Texan officials revealed the figures today, following previous estimates that up to 15 had died in the blast near Waco. The bodies were found near the fertiliser plant.
Today, emergency services have been combing through the wreckage of buildings destroyed in the exposion.
Four paramedics were among the dead, and five volunteer firefighters are listed as missing and feared dead.
The cause of the explosion is not yet known, but officials said there was no evidence of foul play.
“All of that unknown… is really scary, we don’t know what has happened, who is alive, who is hurt, that’s probably the worst part now,” said Pat Lee, whose 92-year-old mother was injured in the blast.
The blast happened within days of the deadly Boston marathon bombings and the discovery of poisonous packages sent to President Barack Obama and a Republican senator.
Powerful
The explosion was so powerful, it had the same strength as a magnitude 2.1 earthquake, according to the US Geological Survey.
After touring the devastated area, Texan Attorney General Greg Abbott compared it to “a bombing site, the kind you see in Baghdad”.
The blast, in a populated area in the town of West, destroyed 60 to 80 houses, reduced a 50-unit apartment complex to what one local official called “a skeleton standing up” and left a landscape of burned-out buildings and blackened rubble.
Bryan Anderson, who was injured along with his nine-year-old son Kaden, said: “This doesn’t happen in West, Texas. We are just a little town.”
‘Hazardous’ chemicals
In 2012, the fertiliser plant stored 270 tons of ammonium nitrate, along with other “extremely hazardous” chemicals, including anhydrous ammonia, according to a report the company filed with the state government.
The plant, which had fewer than 10 employees, had not been inspected by state officials since 2006, when a complaint about an ammonia smell was resolved.
In 2006, the firm running the complex was fined $2,300 for failing to implement a risk management plan.