Fatalities Reported in Washington Packaging Facility Explosion

An accident at a Washington state packaging facility has left at least one person dead, nine missing and nine others injured, with crews working to contain a ruptured tank of caustic chemicals.

The incident occurred Tuesday morning at Nippon Dynawave Packaging Co.’s facility in Longview, as a massive industrial tank of “white liquor” collapsed, officials said. The container held about 900,000 gallons of the substance used to soften wood for papermaking, and about 90,000 gallons may remain inside, local fire department officials estimated.

“Recovery efforts remain complex due to ongoing safety concerns,” the officials and the company said in a joint statement on Facebook. “The tank remains unstable, creating hazardous conditions for emergency personnel.”

There is currently no direct threat to the surrounding community, they said in the statement. Responders are trying to reinforce the structure and stabilize the site so that recovery operations can proceed safely.

Separately on Tuesday, an explosion at an International Paper Co. facility in North Carolina led to several non-life threatening injuries, according to the Warren County Sheriff’s Office. Officials did not say what caused the explosion, Charlotte-based WBTV reported.

The nine people who are still unaccounted for in the Longview incident are all employees of the company, said Matt Amos, battalion chief for Longview Fire Department. Nippon Dynawave Packaging is a subsidiary of Tokyo-based Nippon Paper Industries Co.

Officials said they planned to monitor the Longview site overnight before resuming recovery efforts Wednesday. County Fire Chief Scott Goldstein said personnel from the Environmental Protection Agency, along with teams to deal with hazardous materials, are assisting in the response.

While it will take some time to understand what caused the rupture, there was a water main that also failed, mixing with the caustic material from the tanks, Goldstein said.

Speaking with reporters Tuesday, Goldstein warned people to stay away from dikes and ditches near the plant. Some of the protective equipment that first responders used in the initial rescue was damaged by exposure to the chemicals, which can form “a small cloud on the ground before it dissipates,” Amos said.

A concentrated plume of the substance is dangerous, he said, but it’s mostly an irritant at lower levels.

Longview is a city of 35,000 people on the Columbia River in southwest Washington state, about an hour’s drive from Portland, Oregon. The Nippon facility there makes 300,000 tons of paperboard each year for cartons and cups, as well as market pulp, according to the company’s website. The mill represents 26% of US capacity for liquid packaging board, Citi Research analysts led by Anthony Pettinari wrote in a Wednesday note.

Goldstein said there are half a dozen other companies that also operate at the industrial campus, which has been central to the region’s economy for more than a century.

“Many folks have many generations of family that have worked with these sites,” Goldstein said. “This is an impact being felt wide and deep throughout the community.”

Top photo: A spill Response Team vehicle in front of the Nippon Dynawave Packaging facility in Longview, Washington on May 26. Photographer: Mathieu Lewis-Rolland/Getty Images. Bloomberg.