Texas fertiliser plant flattens town, causes 2.1 magnitude tremor

A fertilizer plant in Texas caught fire and exploded last night in the small mid-Texas town of West, 20 miles from Waco, killing at least 15 persons and injuring 160 others.

The fiery blast was so massive that it levelled dozens of homes and businesses. It also forced the evacuation of half the population of the normally quiet and sleepy town as the fumes spewed out by the explosion are potentially toxic.

There was widespread destruction in the downtown area of West, Sgt W Patrick Swanton of the Waco Police Department said today.

''At some point this will turn into a recovery operation, but at this point, we are still in search and rescue,'' he said.

Authorities said there was no evidence indicating criminal activity, but they were not ruling out the possibility.

Public safety officials said they expected the death toll to climb as search teams combed through the rubble of the demolished plant and surrounding homes.

"I've never seen anything like this," McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara said. "It looks like a war zone with all the debris."

Ground motion from the blast, triggered by a fire of unknown origin at the West Fertilizer Co plant, registered as a magnitude 2.1 seismic tremor. The jolt was felt in Dallas, 80 miles away, and beyond, the US Geological Survey reported.

Sgt Swanton said investigators would examine whether the blaze was the result of foul play or a chemical reaction, adding that the blast site was being treated as a crime scene for the time being.

"We are not indicating that it is a crime, but we don't know," Swanton told reporters early on Thursday, some nine hours after the blast.

"What that means to us is that until we know it is an industrial accident, we will work it as a crime scene."

The explosion came two days before the 20th anniversary of a fire in nearby Waco that engulfed a compound inhabited by David Koresh and his followers in the Branch Davidian sect, ending a siege by federal agents.

About 82 members of the sect and four federal agents died at Waco.

West Mayor Tommy Muska told Reuters that five or six volunteer firefighters who were among the first to arrive at the fertilizer plant were missing.

Firefighters had been battling the fire and evacuating nearby residences and a nursing home for about 20 minutes before the explosion occurred.

Swanton said a residual fire burning underneath additional chemical tanks had been brought under control, and ''I don't think that is any longer a threat".

Texas Public Safety Department spokesman, State Trooper D L Wilson, said about half the town, about eight to 10 blocks, had been evacuated and that "we might even have to evacuate on the other side of town" if winds shift.

But emergency management personnel downtown determined that there was no immediate danger to the public from the smoke from the fire, Swanton said.

Wilson said 50 to 75 homes were damaged by the explosion and a fire that followed, and a nearby 50-unit apartment complex had been reduced to "a skeleton standing up".

Wilson said 133 people had been evacuated from the nursing home, which was heavily damaged, but it was not immediately clear how many residents of the facility were hurt. A middle school in town also was heavily damaged.

It began with a smaller fire at the plant, West Fertilizer, just off Interstate 35, about 20 miles north of Waco that was attended by local volunteer firefighters, said United States Representative Bill Flores.

''The fire spread and hit some of these tanks that contain chemicals to treat the fertilizer,'' Flores said, ''and there was an explosion which caused wide damage.''

Videos posted online showed a large fire, visible from hundreds of yards away, followed by a fireball that blasted high into the sky and set fires burning into the night.

''Right now we have a tremendous amount of injuries,'' Wilson said.

He compared the destruction to Iraq war scenes and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, an act of terrorism using explosives made from fertilizer.

''I can tell you I was there, I walked through the blast area, I searched some houses earlier tonight. It was massive, just like Iraq, just like the Murrah building in Oklahoma City.''

The mayor of West, Tommy Muska, said in brief televised remarks that 50 to 60 houses in a five-block area were heavily damaged, and that search-and-rescue teams worked through the night.