Texas town searches for the living after explosion

WEST, Texas – Rescue workers searched the smouldering ruins of a fertiliser plant Thursday (early Friday Thailand time) for survivors of a monstrous explosion that levelled homes and businesses in every direction across the Texas prairie.

As many as 15 people were feared dead and more than 160 others injured.

Daybreak revealed a breathtaking band of destruction extending outward from the West fertiliser Co in this small farming community about 20 miles north of Waco. The thunderous blast shook the ground with the strength of a small earthquake and could be heard dozens of miles away.

The remains of a fertiliser plant burn after an explosion at the plant near Waco, Texas early Thursday. The deadly explosion ripped through the plant, injuring more than 160 people, levelling dozens of homes and damaging other buildings including a school and a nursing home, authorities said. (Reuters photo)

Several buildings with smashed roofs and leveled walls still were smoking early Thursday.

"They have not gotten to the point of no return where they don't think that there's anybody still alive," Waco Police Sgt William Patrick Swanton said of rescuers.

The explosion that struck around 8pm (8am Thursday in Thailand) sent flames shooting into the night sky and rained burning embers and debris down on shocked and frightened residents. It levelled a four-block area around the plant that a member of the city council, Al Vanek, said was "totally decimated."

There is no indication the blast was anything other than an industrial accident, Swanton said.

The toll included 50 to 75 houses, an apartment complex with about 50 units that one state police officer said was reduced to "a skeleton," a middle school and the West Rest Haven Nursing Home, from which first-responders evacuated 133 patients, some in wheelchairs.

Swanton said earlier that authorities believe between five and 15 people were killed in the blast, but stressed it was an early estimate.

Three to five volunteer firefighters were among those believed to be dead, Swanton said. A single law enforcement officer who responded to a fire call at the West fertiliser Co shortly before the blast was accounted for.

In the hours after the blast, residents wandered the dark, windy streets searching for shelter. Among them was Julie Zahirniako, who said she and her son, Anthony, had been playing at a school playground near the fertiliser plant when the explosion hit. She was walking the track, he was kicking a football.

The explosion threw her son four feet in the air, breaking his ribs. She said she saw people running from the nursing home and the roof of the school lifted into the sky.

"The fire was so high," Zahirniako said. "It was just as loud as it could be. The ground and everything was shaking."

Source: http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/world/345928/search-for-life-after-fertiliser-factory-blast