Crews on Wednesday resumed a search for nine people presumed killed at a Washington state paper mill, where a chemical tank ruptured a day earlier in one of the deadliest US workplace incidents in years.
The likely death toll rose to 11, including those missing, after another person who was injured died, authorities said.
There was no hope of finding more survivors following Tuesday’s tank failure at Nippon Dynawave Packaging Co in Longview, which also injured another eight people, including a firefighter who was treated and released by a hospital, authorities said.
Photo: AP
If the 11 deaths are confirmed, it would be one of the deadliest industrial incidents in the US in the past few decades — alongside a series of blasts that killed 16 people at an explosives plant in Tennessee last fall; a fire and detonation that killed 14 people at a fertilizer plant in Texas in 2013; the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion that killed 11 people in 2010; and an explosion at a West Virginia coal mine that killed 29 people in 2010.
Officials said that the paper mill tank spilled more than 1.9 million liters of “white liquor,” a highly destructive chemical mixture used in paper manufacturing.
After delaying the search over concerns that the tank might collapse further, crews determined that it contained less liquid than initially thought and that the tank was stable enough to resume the work.
Photo: Reuters
Fire officials said the search would be slow and methodical.
“We do not know where all nine are,” said Scott Goldstein, a Cowlitz County fire chief.
Authorities said the rupture has not affected the safety of the air and drinking water in Longview, a Columbia River city of about 40,000 people.
Some contamination had reached the Columbia River, one of North America’s largest waterways, but the US Environmental Protection Agency reported that no effects on the river had been observed.
Officials warned residents to keep away from ditches and dikes.
The tank was more than half full when it ruptured, Goldstein said.
White liquor, which is made mostly of sodium hydroxide and sodium sulfide, is used with heat to break down wood to make kraft paper, a durable material used in packaging, shopping bags and other products.
The sprawling plant, which employs about 1,000 people, makes material for tissues, printing paper, cups, plates and cartons. It sits along the river next to other timber, paper and chemical businesses.
The rupture happened at shift change on Tuesday morning, causing the huge circular tank to buckle on one side. The cause was unclear.
Authorities have not released the names of the dead or missing, but some have begun to trickle out.
Todd Cornwell said that his friend Gilbert Bernal was an electrician at the plant and was the first confirmed death.
They knew each other through church and were in the same Bible study group, Cornwell said.
“We actually had our group last night and instead of doing Bible study, we talked about him,” Cornwell said. “He was always there willing to help in whatever needed to be done. When the local church school started flooding, he was one of the people there.”
Brian Williquette, a chemical supplier for the region’s mills, was at the plant on Tuesday morning when he heard an alarm over the intercom and first wondered if it was a drill.
He got out safely and did not see any of the damage.
“It’s just unfathomable,” he said at a community vigil on Tuesday. “There’s not anybody that lives here that doesn’t know somebody at a paper mill.”
Crystal Moldenhauer, a Longview resident, said she has friends at the plant who remained unaccounted for.
She said people called and texted each other all day trying to figure out what happened.
“We’re all still waiting for answers,” she said. “There’s families that have been torn apart, and we don’t know why.”
Nippon Paper Group said in a statement on Wednesday that it was offering its “deepest condolences and heartfelt sympathies to the bereaved families.”
Some of those who were injured sustained burns or inhalation injuries, authorities said.
Following the tank’s rupture, the liquid spilled into a drainage ditch, Washington State Ecology Department spokeswoman Brittny Goodsell said.
Almost every industry uses chemical tanks like the one that failed and they are generally quite safe, said Stephen Kmiotek, a chemical engineering professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
It is important that companies keep up proper maintenance and inspections, particularly after the tanks get older, Kmiotek said.
It began as a satirical online project. Now millions of young people in India are flocking to it as an outlet for their frustration. A parody political party called the Cockroach Janta Party, with the insect as its symbol, has exploded across India’s social media by turning absurdist humor into protest. Memes and short videos mocking corruption, joblessness and political dysfunction have flooded social media sites, where millions of users are embracing the cockroach — known for its ability to survive harsh conditions — as a tongue-in-cheek symbol of endurance. The online movement’s rise has been unusually rapid. The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP)
SPEAKING OUT: After Siranudh Scott’s allegations surfaced, celebrities and public figures took to social media to share their own experiences of sexual misconduct and abuse A high-profile alleged sexual abuse case within a wealthy Thai beer brewing family has prompted a wave of painful accounts from survivors of unconnected abuse in the conservative nation. Siranudh Scott, a member of the billionaire Thai family that founded the ubiquitous Singha beer brand, posted an emotional video this month accusing his elder brother Sunit of repeatedly abusing him when he was a teenager. Sunit, who is in his 30s, later denied the allegations in a video posted online, but Singha parent Boonrawd dismissed him from his executive role with the company on Tuesday last week. “I felt I needed to speak
A Hong Kong astronaut is to join a Chinese space mission for the first time as part of a three-person crew launching today, as Beijing edges closer to its goal of landing people on the moon. The Tiangong space station — crewed by teams of three astronauts that are typically rotated every six months — is the crown jewel of China’s space program, boosted by billions in state investment in a bid to catch up with the US and Russia. The Shenzhou-23 mission is to blast off at 11:08pm from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China, carrying three astronauts to
UPGRADED ALERT: The risk inside DR Congo is now considered ‘very high,’ while neighboring countries face a ‘high’ threat as the outbreak continues, the WHO said Ebola is spreading faster than responders can track it in eastern Congo, where health workers managed to follow up with barely one in five identified contacts in a single day. Authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) reported 83 confirmed infections, 746 suspected cases and 1,603 identified contacts as of Thursday, but health workers were able to follow up on only 342 contacts that day — about 21 percent of the total under monitoring — data released by the DR Congo Ministry of Public Health on Friday showed. The figures suggest the response is falling behind the outbreak itself,
RSS