MIND BLOWING:Firefighters search for survivors yesterday at a destroyed apartment complex following the previous night’s earth-shattering blast at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas (AP)
MIND BLOWING: Firefighters search for survivors yesterday at a destroyed apartment complex following the previous night’s earth-shattering blast at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas (AP)
A massive fertilizer-plant explosion that rocked a small Texas town like a “nuclear bomb” may have been set off when a rail car loaded with highly combustible ammonium nitrate caught fire, a White House official told The Post yesterday.
The powerful explosion — whose blast wave traveled 45 miles in just 12 seconds — killed as many as 15 people, injured another 160 and destroyed an estimated 80 houses, a school and nursing home in the tiny town of West, Texas.
“It was like a nuclear bomb went off,” West Mayor Tommy Muska said of Wednesday night’s blast, which came about 20 minutes after volunteer firefighters began battling a blaze at the West Fertilizer Co. facility, 19 miles north of Waco and 80 miles south of Dallas.
As rescue workers — including teams that had worked at the World Trade Center site after the 9/11 attacks — scoured the area for survivors, Texas Gov. Rick Perry called the explosion and widespread devastation “truly a nightmare scenario.”
Officials said they feared the death toll would likely rise in the coming days to 50 or more.
An Obama-administration official said investigators believe the fire started on a chemical rail car either on the facility’s property or directly adjacent to it.
The fire is not believed to have been intentionally set, although investigators are still trying to determine its cause.
The blaze then somehow ignited the solid fertilizer ammonium nitrate — which exploded with such force that the blast registered 2.1 on the Richter scale, the equivalent of a small earthquake, the official said.
Debby Marak, a local resident, said she was in her car when two boys ran toward her screaming that authorities had warned that the plant was going to explode.
“It was like being in a tornado,” Marak, 58, told The Associated Press. “Stuff was flying everywhere . . . It was like the whole earth shook.”
Three or four volunteer firefighters battling the fire at the time of the blast were still missing yesterday.
Among the dead was Dallas Fire Rescue Capt. Kenny Harris, 52, a West resident and married dad of three who had been off-duty when he went to help volunteer West firefighters.
In a required risk-management plan filed in 2011, the operators of the plant told the federal Environmental Protection Agency that there was no major risk of a fire or explosion but the “worst-case scenario” in a potential fire would be an ammonia leak from a storage tank or hose, according to The Wall Street Journal.
West Fertilizer also said the plant had no alarms, automatic shutoff system, firewall or sprinkler system. It had been cited by the EPA in 2006 and fined $2,3000.