An intruder is suspected of having been killed after sparking a massive explosion at a fireworks factory near Sydney which blew out windows and doors in several nearby homes, police said yesterday.
The huge blast at the Howard and Sons Pyrotechnics factory in Wallerwang on Saturday night, which was heard 30km away, has hit the New Year celebration plans of several major Australian cities.
Police suspect the explosion may have been caused by someone who entered illegally and fear the intruder may have been killed.
Fireworks stored in a shipping container exploded and an inspection of the site from the edge of a safety exclusion zone had revealed that other containers had been opened.
"There's a lot of debris and rubble that has to be sorted through yet, to try and find if there are persons inside, but I can tell you there were no people legitimately on the site when the explosion occurred," police superintendent Greg Martin said.
A director of the family-owned company, Andrew Howard, said he was extremely suspicious about what caused the fireworks to explode.
"These fireworks, they're professional fireworks and they're not deemed to be extremely sensitive in that capacity," he said. "[They] really require ignition or an ignition source, or a fire or sparks of some nature, to set them off."
An exclusion zone remained in place yesterday and firefighters, police and government inspectors were unable to enter the area until it was declared safe.
Nearby residents were evacuated after the explosion fired off shards of hot metal and blew out windows in eight nearby homes.
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