Nursing home, school and homes damaged, with more than 100 injured taken to one hospital, say authorities
A massive explosion at a fertiliser plant in Texas has devastated a town, levelling buildings, setting others on fire and causing casualties that authorities fear could run into the hundreds.
The blast shook the earth and rolled a huge fireball through the town of West at about 8pm local time on Wednesday, witnesses said, destroying homes and businesses.
"It was a like a nuclear bomb went off," the mayor, Tommy Muska, told reporters. "Big old mushroom cloud. There are a lot of people that got hurt. There are a lot of people that will not be here tomorrow."
Two people were immediately reported killed but the death toll could rise to 60 or 70, said George Smith, an emergency management system director. "That's a really rough number, I'm getting that figure from firefighters, we don't know yet." Firefighters were feared to be among the casualties.
Glenn Robinson, chief executive of Hillcrest Baptist Medical Centre in Waco, 18 miles south of the town, told CNN his hospital had treated 66 people, including 38 who were seriously hurt with blast injuries and lacerations.
David Argueta, vice-president of hospital operations, said staff had treated lacerations and orthopaedic-type injuries. "We are being told that we have seen most of the patients, and it's now turned into a search-and-rescue operation on scene."
A spokesman for the Texas department of public safety, DL Wilson, told Reuters the blast had probably caused "hundreds of casualties". A nursing home had collapsed and people were believed trapped inside, he said. It registered as an earth tremor of magnitude 2.1.
West, located in McLennan county in central Texas, is about 80 miles south of Dallas. It has a population of 2,700. The blast from its fertiliser plant was heard at least 45 miles away.
Television pictures showed apocalyptic scenes of fire and smoke from ruined buildings close to the factory.
There was no immediate confirmation on what caused the apparent accident, which followed a terrorist attack in Boston. US Representative Bill Flores, whose district includes West, told CNN he doubted foul play was involved. "I would not expect sabotage by any stretch of the imagination."
Warning signs preceded the blast. A teacher, Debby Marak, 58, told the Associated Press that after teaching religion class she noticed a lot of smoke coming from the area across town near the plant, which is near the nursing home. When she drove over to investigate two boys ran toward her screaming that 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. Stuff was flying everywhere. It blew out my windshield. It was like the whole earth shook."
Her husband, who was in another part of town when the blast hit, told her a huge fireball rose like "a mushroom cloud".
Hours later TV helicopters showed fires still smouldering in the factory and nearby buildings, including what appeared to be a school.
Firefighters expressed concern about anhydrous ammonia, a gas used in fertiliser which can poison and cause severe burns. State troopers in gas masks set up roadblocks and directed traffic away from the scene.
The Red Cross was working with emergency management officials in West to shelter displaced and evacuated residents.
Lydia Zimmerman told the KWTX station that she, her husband and daughter were in their garden in Bynum, 13 miles from West, when they heard multiple blasts. "It sounded like three bombs going off very close to us," she said.
The explosion came two days before the 20th anniversary of a conflagration in Waco when federal agents ended a siege by storming the compound of David Koresh and his Branch Davidian sect followers, resulting in the death of 82 members of the sect and four federal agents
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