U.S. authorities announced overnight that 11 people were killed when a chemical tank collapsed at a plant in Washington state. Rescue teams recovered the bodies of nine missing workers after days of intensive searching through the debris at the industrial facility.
The disaster struck last week at the Nippon Dynawave packaging plant when a tank holding “white liquor”—a chemical solution of sodium hydroxide and sodium sulfide used in paper production—collapsed. Initially, only two workers were confirmed dead, but search operations continued for days.
Drones Deployed in Debris
Kurt Stitz, deputy fire chief for the area’s fire and rescue department, said rescue teams worked through piles of debris in covered areas and deployed drones over the site to locate the missing workers. The collapsed tank held roughly 3.4 million liters of the hazardous chemical.
Health and environmental officials confirmed that some of the chemicals leaked into the nearby Columbia River as a result of the explosion. However, tests conducted on air quality and the drinking water system in Longview showed no negative health effects on residents living near the plant.
The packaging plant was established in 2016 as a subsidiary of Nippon Paper Industries, Japan’s second-largest paper manufacturer. The facility was previously purchased from a Seattle-based timber company for approximately $225 million and has since served as a major employment hub in the area—now the site of this devastating disaster.