Washington - The bodies of three people have been found and
at least three more people are missing after a massive explosion at a
sugar refinery in the south-eastern US state of Georgia, authorities
said Friday.
More than 60 people were injured and 15 remained in critical
condition with severe burns after the blast, which occurred Thursday
night near the city of Savannah. The fire had since been contained.
State officials had earlier said six bodies were found amid the
wreckage Friday morning, but police later revised that number down to
three. There remained at least three people unaccounted for, but
rescue efforts were limited.
'This has really shifted from a rescue operation to a recovery
operation,' Savannah-Chatham County Police Chief Michael Berkow said
in broadcast remarks.
Savannah Fire Department officials said the explosion happened
Thursday in the bagging section of the factory. An investigation into
the cause of the blast was ongoing, but authorities speculated that
sugar dust from the refining process may have ignited.
Police evacuated some areas near the Imperial Sugar refinery in
the Fort Wentworth area of suburban Savannah shortly after the
explosion and subsequent fire. The worst injured were airlifted to a
special to a burn centre in Augusta.
'We heard the explosion and we saw the sparks and the flames shoot
up,' Joyce Baker, the first emergency responder on the scene, told
local station WTOC-TV.
'The ground shook, my husband was with me and we raced over here.
He's a Port Wentworth police officer. I got my trauma bag out and by
the time we got out there, there were already 13 people coming out
with third degree burns and it was like walking into hell,' she said.
Reports said residents as far away Garden City and Levy, in the
neighbouring state of South Carolina, heard and in some cases felt
the explosion.
USA
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