A tank containing hazardous liquid imploded at Nippon Dynawave Packaging Co. in Longview, Washington, causing at least one confirmed death and injuring nine other people. Crews are set to resume searching for nine missing workers.
Crews are set to resume searching for nine workers at a Washington paper mill where a tank imploded, releasing a highly destructive chemical mixture called ' white liquor ' and causing at least one confirmed death.
Authorities have said there is no hope of finding more survivors of Tuesday's tank implosion at Nippon Dynawave Packaging Co. in Longview, which also injured nine other people, including a responding firefighter. The implosion caused the huge circular tank to buckle and collapse on one side, and officials said they would only work during daylight because of the dangers.
The cause of the implosion remains unknown, but authorities have said there is no threat to the community, a Columbia River city of about 40,000 people with long ties to the Washington and Oregon paper and lumber industries. The paper mill tank was holding about 900,000 gallons of a liquid made of mostly sodium hydroxide and sodium sulfide.
Known as white liquor, it is used with heat to break down wood to make kraft paper, a durable material used in packaging, shopping bags and other products. The plant, which employs about 1,000 people, makes material for tissues, printing paper, cups, plates, and cartons. It sits along the river next to other timber, paper and chemical businesses. Crystal Moldenhauer, a Longview resident, said she has friends at the plant who remained unaccounted for.
She said people called and texted each other all day trying to figure out what happened.
'We're all still waiting for answers,' she said. 'There's families that have been torn apart, and we don't know why. ' Scott Goldstein, a fire chief with Cowlitz County, said Tuesday night that the tank still held about 90,000 gallons of the volatile liquid. 'We don't know until we know, hopefully tomorrow, how we can stabilize the tank.
Do we remove the product first? Do we stabilize the tank first or the vice versa?
' Goldstein said. Some of those who were injured suffered burns or inhalation injuries, authorities said. Following the tank's rupture, the liquid spilled into a drainage ditch, said Brittny Goodsell, a state Ecology Department spokesperson. Safety complaints were filed against Nippon Dynawave in March and May.
The state's labor and industries department said on X that both were unrelated to the current situation. One was an anonymous complaint about a valve on a tank, according to the department, which noted that it was not the tank that imploded.
Nippon Dynawave, a subsidiary of Japan-based Nippon Paper Group, has been fined $3,400 for three separate health and safety violations found by Washington Department of Labor and Industries inspectors since the start of 2021, according to the department's online database. Just over 40 people died between January 2021 and mid-October 2023 as a result of hazardous chemical incidents in the U.S.,Boone reported from Boise, Idaho.
Associated Press reporters Gene Johnson and Hallie Golden in Seattle and Christopher L. Keller in Albuquerque, New Mexico, contributed
Nippon Dynawave Packaging Co. Tank Implosion Hazardous Liquid White Liquor Longview Washington Paper Mill Safety Complaints Health And Safety Violations
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