11 presumed dead after chemical tank blast at Washington plant, river contaminated
Eleven people are dead or presumed dead after a chemical tank ruptured at a paper packaging plant in southwest Washington, sending contaminated material into the Columbia River, according to fire officials. Seven employees remain hospitalized.
The incident happened at about 7:15 a.m. on Tuesday at Nippon Dynawave Packaging on Industrial Way in Longview, a city along the Columbia River about 45 miles north of Portland, Oregon.
The confirmed death toll has risen to two after a second employee who was taken from the scene to a hospital died from their injuries, fire officials said on Wednesday. Nine other people remain unrecovered at the site, where officials have moved from rescue operations to recovery.
“We have declared this incident a transition from rescue to recovery as of this morning,” Cowlitz 2 Fire and Rescue Chief Scott Goldstein said.
Goldstein said the blast happened during shift change in an area that included administrative offices, break rooms and operational spaces. He said vehicles, buildings and mechanical equipment were damaged, collapsed or failed.
“This was a blast,” Goldstein said. “We’ve used the word explosion. We’ve used the word implosion. I’ve also used the word failure. Indeed, there was a rupture, a failure, a blast.”
Officials said recovery crews began working at the site on Wednesday after drone operations and structural assessments reduced concerns about the damaged tank. Earlier estimates suggested about 90,000 gallons of product remained inside, but further observation showed the amount was no more than about 25,000 gallons, Goldstein said.
The tank contained white liquor, a highly alkaline chemical mixture used in the papermaking process. Goldstein said about 550,000 gallons of product left the tank after the rupture.
Environmental monitoring is being conducted by local officials, the Washington State Department of Ecology and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Goldstein said air monitoring and water sampling continued overnight.
Testing confirmed that contaminated material entered the Columbia River on Tuesday. Additional evaluations are underway to determine the scope and extent of the environmental impact.
Brian Wood, director of support services for Nippon Dynawave Packaging, said the company’s monitoring systems detected two spikes of high-pH material leaving the plant site toward the Columbia River, one around the time of the initial incident and another two or three hours later.
Wood said some material also moved through storm drains into ditches near the plant. Officials are working with the diking district, state ecology officials and the EPA to address the contamination, including likely neutralization of the material.
Governor Bob Ferguson said officials recovered about a dozen dead carp from the dikes. Goldstein said diking district pumps were shut off at about 8 a.m. Tuesday at the request of site personnel, preventing the material from being pumped farther out.
Officials said there are no identified negative health impacts to surrounding air quality or Longview’s drinking water system. The public was still asked to avoid roads, dikes and ditches near the facility.
Matt Amos, a Longview battalion chief working at the site, said recovery operations will be slow and deliberate.
“The priority is ensuring responder safety while treating every victim with the greatest dignity, care and respect as possible,” Amos said.
Amos said recovered victims will be decontaminated before being taken to the Cowlitz County coroner’s office for identification and family notification.
The firefighter who was injured during the initial response has been released from the hospital and has follow-up appointments, officials said.
“We are bracing ourselves for this being the deadliest industrial tragedy in modern Washington history,” Gov. Ferguson said.
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