An explosion at a steel plant near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the United States has left one dead and dozens injured or trapped, with emergency workers on site trying to rescue victims, officials said.
An Allegheny County Emergency Services spokesperson, Kasey Reigner, on Monday said one person died and two were currently believed to be unaccounted for. Multiple other people were treated for injuries, Reigner said.
A fire at the plant started around 10:51am (14:50 GMT), according to Allegheny County Emergency Services.
“It felt like thunder,” Zachary Buday, a construction worker near the scene, told WTAE-TV. “Shook the scaffold, shook my chest, and shook the building, and then when we saw the dark smoke coming up from the steel mill and put two and two together, and it’s like something bad happened.”
Dozens were injured and the county was sending 15 ambulances, in addition to the ambulances supplied by local emergency response agencies, Reigner said.
Air quality concerns and health warnings
The plant, a massive industrial facility along the Monongahela River south of Pittsburgh, is considered the largest coking operation in North America and is one of four major US Steel plants in Pennsylvania that employ several thousand workers.
The Allegheny County Health Department said it is monitoring the explosion and advised residents within one mile (1.6 kilometres) of the plant to remain indoors, close all windows and doors, set air conditioning systems to recirculate, and avoid drawing in outside air, such as using exhaust fans. It said its monitors have not detected levels of soot or sulfur dioxide above federal standards.
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The plant converts coal to coke, a key component in the steel-making process. According to the company, it produces 4.3 million tons (3.9 million metric tonnes) of coke annually and has approximately 1,400 workers.
In recent years, the Clairton plant has been dogged by concerns about pollution. In 2019, it agreed to settle a 2017 lawsuit for $8.5m. Under the settlement, the company agreed to spend $6.5m to reduce soot emissions and noxious odours from the Clairton coke-making facility.
In another lawsuit, residents said that following a massive 2018 fire, the air felt acidic, smelled like rotten eggs, and was hard to breathe due to the release of sulfur dioxide.
Last year, the company agreed to spend $19.5m in equipment upgrades and $5m on local clean air efforts and programmes as part of settling a federal lawsuit filed by the Clean Air Council and PennEnvironment and the Allegheny County Health Department.
The lawsuits accused the steel producer of more than 12,000 violations of its air pollution permits.
David Masur, executive director of PennEnvironment, an environmental group that has previously sued US Steel over pollution, said there needed to be “a full, independent investigation into the causes of this latest catastrophe and a re-evaluation as to whether the Clairton plant is fit to keep operating.”
In June, US Steel and Nippon Steel announced they had finalised a “historic partnership”, a deal that gives the US government a say in some matters and comes a year and a half after the Japanese company first proposed its nearly $15bn buyout of the iconic American steelmaker.
The pursuit by Nippon Steel for the Pittsburgh-based company was buffeted by national security concerns and presidential politics in a premier battleground state, dragging out the transaction for more than a year after US Steel shareholders approved it.