An implosion at a Washington State paper facility has killed two people, with nine people still missing. Photo courtesy Longview Fire Department/Facebook
Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson said Wednesday that the state expects a paper mill implosion Tuesday in Longview to be “the deadliest tragedy in modern Washington state history.”
“When you have a tragedy of that scale, the impacts on individuals, on families, and on communities is profound,” Ferguson said.
Officials confirmed a second death in the incident Wednesday,and nine people are still missing. Eight people were injured in the implosion, with seven remaining in local hospitals.
The accident, an implosion of a 900,000-gallon chemical tank, took place Tuesday morning at Nippon Dynawave Packaging in southwest Washington. The first death confirmed was that of Gilbert Bernal, 52, NBC News reported, and the second death was that of someone transported from the plant to a hospital after the implosion.
Chief Scott Goldstein of Cowlitz 2 Fire and Rescue said Wednesday that operations around the site have shifted from “rescue to recovery,” The Seattle Times reported.
Goldstein said rescue workers have searched for the nine missing people with no luck so far. The implosion took place during a shift change, so many people were moving around and in the area of the incident.
“We have searched the area, the area that is searchable,” he said, NBC News reported. “We do not have the ability to state that we have located all nine, nor the ability to state where those nine were.”
The tank contained a mix of sodium hydroxide, sodium sulfide, and disodium carbonate, which are highly caustic and meant to change wood to pulp – and could cause second- to third-degree burns in people, officials said.
Goldstein and other officials said that the disaster has contaminated the nearby Columbia River through the storm drain system. Ferguson said that about a dozen dead carp were found in a river dike but that there is no sign of contamination to the drinking water supply or airborne contamination.
