WACO, TEXAS // A deadly explosion ripped through a Texas fertiliser plant near Waco late on Wednesday, injuring more than 100 people, leveling dozens of homes and damaging other buildings including a school and nursing home, authorities said.
They said an undetermined number of people had been killed, and that the death toll was expected to rise as search teams combed through the rubble of the demolished plant and surrounding homes.
"We do have confirmed fatalities," Texas Public Safety Department spokesman DL Wilson told a news conference about four hours after the explosion.
"The number is not current yet. It could go up by the minute. We're in there searching the area right now and making sure that it's safe."
The blast, apparently preceded by a fire at the plant, was reported at about 8pm. in West, a town of some 2,700 people about 130km south of Dallas and 32km north of Waco.
West Mayor Tommy Muska told Reuters that five or six volunteer firefighters who were among the first on the scene in the blast zone were unaccounted for.
CNN reported that at least two people had been killed, but that figure could not be independently confirmed.
“It’s a lot of devastation. I’ve never seen anything like this,” McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara said. “It looks like a war zone with all the debris.”
Wilson said 50 to 75 homes were damaged by the explosion and a fire that followed, and that a nearby 50-unit apartment complex had been reduced to “a skeleton standing up”. Muska put the number of destroyed homes at between 60 and 80.
Wilson said 133 people had been evacuated from the badly damaged nursing home, but it was not immediately clear how many of them were hurt.
He estimated that overall more than 100 people had been injured in the disaster.
McNamara said much of the centre of town had been evacuated, and that residences nearest the explosion had been flattened.
There was no immediate official word on what sparked the explosion as emergency personnel assisted victims and doused the flames. US Representative Bill Flores, whose district includes West, said he doubted any foul play was involved.
“I would not expect sabotage by any stretch of the imagination,” he told CNN.
A Texas public safety dispatcher in Waco told Reuters an initial explosion was followed by two smaller blasts, all of which erupted after a fire at the plant.
He said there was concern a “second silo” at the plant could explode and that authorities were scrambling to evacuate the area around the facility.
Aerial footage showed fires still smouldering in the ruins of the plant and in several surrounding buildings, and people being treated for injuries on the flood-lit local football field, which had been turned into a staging area for emergency responders.
Glenn A. Robinson, the chief executive of Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center in Waco, told CNN that his hospital had received 66 injured people for treatment, including 38 who were seriously hurt. He said the injuries included blast injuries, orthopedic injuries, large wounds and a lot of lacerations and cuts.
The hospital has set up a hotline for families of the victims to get information, he said.
Debby Marak said that when she finished teaching her religion class last night, she noticed a lot of smoke coming from the area across town near the plant, which is near a nursing home. She said she drove over to see what was happening, and that when she got out of her car two boys ran toward her screaming that the authorities told them to leave because the plant was going to explode. She said she drove about a block before the blast happened.
"It was like being in a tornado," the 58-year-old said by phone. "Stuff was flying everywhere. It blew out my windshield."
"It was like the whole earth shook."
She drove 10 blocks and called her husband and asked him to come get her. When they got to their home about 3km south of town, her husband told her what he had seen: a huge fireball that rose like "a mushroom cloud".
More than two hours after the blast, there were still fires smouldering in what was left of the plant and others burning in nearby buildings.
In aerial footage dozens of emergency vehicles could be seen amassed at the scene. Entry into the town of West was slow-going, as the roads were jammed with emergency vehicles rushing in to help.
