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The search for the missing after an explosion at a Tennessee ammunition plant has become a search for their remains, officials said Saturday.
The search for the missing after an explosion at a Tennessee ammunition plant has become a search for their remains, officials said Saturday.
No survivors have been found at the site of the blast that occurred Friday, local authorities said, adding that more than 300 emergency workers had scoured the ruins. Sixteen people remained missing Saturday.
The explosion occurred at a plant owned by Accurate Energetic Systems, which produces explosives and demolition charges for the U.S. military.
The recovery process has been slow, said Sheriff Chris Davis of Humphreys County, Tennessee, at a news conference Saturday, as bomb technicians and explosive specialists worked to ensure that the scene was safe for law enforcement officers to continue the investigation.
Here’s what we know about the blast.
When and where did it happen?
The explosion occurred at 7:45 a.m. Central time roughly 60 miles west of Nashville. The facility is on a sprawling 1,300-acre campus straddling Hickman and Humphreys counties in rural Tennessee.
Witnesses said the explosion was so powerful that it rattled homes at least a dozen miles away and generated a plume of smoke large enough to register on the weather radar of a Nashville television station.
There was about half a square mile of damage from the explosion, Davis said at a news conference Friday.
Three people received treatment Friday for “minor injuries” from the blast at TriStar medical facilities in Dickson, Tennessee, and have since been released.
What caused the explosion?
Davis said the cause of the blast was being investigated by several agencies, including the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. He added that the investigation was likely to take “many days.”
The grounds of the site remained hazardous Saturday, officials said, because many of the substances among the ruins were volatile, particularly after the heat and pressure they underwent in the explosion.
“When the explosives are subject to the event that took place, they can change and become different than how we know them to act,” said Guy McCormick, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
What was produced and stored at the plant?
Accurate Energetic Systems employs around 75 people on its campus, spread across five production facilities and a lab. The workers load, assemble and pack explosive charges and munitions.
According to its website, the company produces TNT, or trinitrotoluene, which is one of the most commonly used explosives for military and commercial applications.
One of the products made at the plant is a series of booster charges made of TNT encased in small neon-green cylinders, according to photos on the company’s website. Aerial videos of the site show numerous small fires burning amid rubble, along with what appear to be dozens of small canisters on the ground that are similarly bright green. TNT booster charges play a key role in commercial blasting and quarrying.
The company also produces other explosives, including HMX, used in various types of ordnance; PETN, used in detonating cord and in the mining industry; and RDX, a main component of C-4 explosive blocks commonly used by the military. The industrial production of these types of explosives can produce large amounts of hazardous waste that requires careful handling and proper disposal.
The explosion has shaken the small, tight-knit communities in Hickman and Humphreys counties, which have a combined population of about 44,000.
One of the communities is known as Bucksnort, where there are winding dirt roads, ample hunting ground and just a handful of businesses. Steven Anderson, who runs a trout farm there, said there were only three points of interest in town — the trout farm, the munitions plant and a gas station with a convenience store where he said workers from the plant often eat lunch.
Davis said the tragedy has devastated the community, including law enforcement officers responding to the explosion, some of whom personally knew some of the affected families. “You want me to be honest? It’s hell,” the sheriff said at a news conference Friday. “It’s hell on us. It’s hell on everybody involved.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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