Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 6, 1990 TAG: 9007060755
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CHANNELVIEW, TEXAS LENGTH: Medium
The explosion occurred around 11:30 p.m. Thursday at the Atlantic Richfield Co. chemical plant in this Houston suburb. The 564-acre complex employs more than 400 people.
"At this time, we think we have 14 casualties," plant manager Earl McCaleb, his voice breaking with emotion, said this morning. "It's a terrible tragedy." In addition, he said, two workers were missing.
McCaleb said the blaze was not extinguished until more than four hours after the explosion.
"The tank that exploded contains wastewater and some hydrocarbons. It was in a somewhat remote area of the complex," McCaleb said. "I don't know why there were so many other people there." Normally, he said, only about five people would be in that area.
The cause of the blast was not immediately determined.
"I seen a big flash cross in front of my eyes. I looked over to my left and I saw a big ball of fire. . . . It looked to me like a tank run off, you know, a like a rocket just took off," Mike Zugel, a truck driver who witnessed the explosion, told Cable News Network.
There were no evacuations of people living in the area, according to fire dispatcher Karen Ragsdale.
Rose Ann Raupp, an investigator for the Harris County medical examiner's office, said her office was working with plant employees in an attempt to recover the bodies.
"We believe there's 14 dead, but we're still investigating," she said.
Initially, authorities had described the blast and fire as relatively minor and said no injuries were reported. Shortly after midnight, Ragsdale had said the plant's own firefighters were putting out the fire and added: "It's not really a big fire."
The blast is the second major loss of life at a Houston-area petrochemical plant in the past nine months. On Oct. 23, a Phillips Petroleum Co. plastics plant in nearby Pasadena was hit by series of explosions that killed 23 workers and injured 130.
On June 8, two people were injured in an explosion and fire at a chemical packaging plant in Pearland, south of Houston.
by CNB