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Crews were set to resume searching on Wednesday for nine workers at a Washington state paper mill where a tank imploded, but authorities said there was no hope of finding any more survivors.
One person was confirmed dead and nine people were reported injured on Tuesday after a tank at Nippon Dynawave Packaging Co in Longview imploded, releasing a highly destructive chemical mixture called “white liquor”. But nine other workers remained missing.
Before any bodies of the missing can be recovered, crews must first stabilize the tank, which was at risk of collapsing further and leaking more of the caustic liquid. Officials said they would only work during daylight because of the dangers.
While the cause remained unknown, authorities said there was 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.
It was the second notable chemical tank failure in days on the west coast, following the evacuation of thousands of southern California residents due to a damaged tank at an aerospace plant.
The sprawling Longview plant, which employs about 1,000 people, makes material for tissues, printing paper, cups, plates and cartons. The facility sits right along the river next to other timber, paper and chemical businesses.
The paper mill tank was holding about 900,000 gallons (3.4m liters) of a liquid made of mostly sodium hydroxide and sodium sulfide. Known as “white liquor”, it’s used with heat to break down wood to make kraft paper, a durable material used in packaging, shopping bags and other products.
Scott Goldstein, a fire chief with Cowlitz county, said Tuesday night that the tank still held about 90,000 gallons (more than 340,000 liters) 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.
Following the tank’s rupture, the liquid spilled into a drainage ditch, said Brittny Goodsell, a state ecology department spokesperson.
“I know there’s a lot of questions about how all of this happened and I want to assure you that we will all continue to pressure to get answers to those questions,” Murray said.
At a community vigil on Tuesday night, dozens gathered to pray, light candles and embrace loved ones.
Crystal Moldenhauer, a Longview resident, said she had 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.”
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 US, according to a paper released by a network of environmental justice organizations in late 2023.
