Firefighter Greg Smith, left, and Deral Raynor, North Lenior Fire Department chief, confer before a media briefing Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2003, near the site of an explosion and fire at the West Pharmaceutical Services Inc. factory in Kinston, N.C., that killed at least three people. (AP Photo/Bob Jordan)
07:04 AM EST January 30, 2003
The Associated Press
KINSTON, N.C.Investigators turned to eyewitnesses for clues to the cause of an explosion and raging fire at a plastics factory that killed at least three people and injured 37 others. Ten people remained in critical condition early Thursday.
The explosion sent flames and debris shooting into the air and could be felt for miles around the West Pharmaceutical Services plant, which had been previously been cited for safety violations.
"It almost felt like an earthquake was taking place," said Hugh Pollock, headmaster of nearby Arendell Parrott Academy.
Thick, acrid smoke rolled from the building late into the night. Early Thursday, light rain was falling over the countryside, but the flames persisted in the most damaged area of the plant.
Chief Deral Raynor of the North Lenoir Fire Department said about 130 people had been at the plant when it exploded at 1:27 p.m. Wednesday. Authorities said Thursday morning they believed every one had been accounted for.
Joseph Moore, an 18-year veteran molder, was working near the rear door when the explosion occurred. He was struck on the head by ceiling tiles and other debris, but wasn't injured.
"I just shook that off, and grabbed somebody and got out as fast as I could," he said at Immanuel Baptist Church, where factory workers went to meet their families.
Greg Smith, operations chief of the Kinston Public Safety Department, said the blast occurred in a four-story area of the factory where chemicals are mixed.
It was hard to measure the scope of the disaster, Smith said: "The damage is catastrophic to the building. The structure is so compromised that you just can't enter and walk around."
He said rubble - mostly chunks of concrete block and metal shards - was knee-deep in parts of the plant.
Roger Dail, Lenoir County's emergency services director, said officials asked plant workers to return to the scene Thursday to talk to investigators.
Eleven of the people injured were treated and released, according to hospital records compiled by the Red Cross. The victims were scattered among area hospitals and 10 critically injured people were taken to the North Carolina Jaycee Burn Center in Chapel Hill.
Carolyn Merritt, chairman of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, said her team would talk to the workers to "try to determine what processes were going on and what chemicals were being used."
The federal agency's review could take from six months to a year. The FBI, State Bureau of Investigation, Occupational Safety and Health Administration and other agencies also sent investigators.
The factory makes syringe plungers and IV fitments and employs about 225 people in this city of 25,000 about 70 miles southeast of Raleigh.
West Pharmaceutical Services Inc., based in Lionville, Pa., near Philadelphia, makes pharmaceutical delivery and medical devices.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration said the plant was inspected in October, cited for numerous safety violations and fined about $10,000, which was reduced to about $9,000 early this month.
The violations included problems with its electrical systems design, wiring and use; portable fire extinguishers; hazardous waste operations; and communications.
Since 1993, OSHA has inspected 443 similar facilities and found an average of nearly six violations per site, compared with 15 violations at West Pharmaceutical.
North Carolina is the site of one of the nation's worst workplace disasters: Twenty-four employees and a delivery man died and 56 people were injured in a 1991 fire sparked when hydraulic fluid from a conveyor belt sprayed over a gas-fired chicken fryer at Roe's Imperial Food Products plant in Hamlet.
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On the Net:
West Pharmaceutical Services: https://www.westpharma.com
https://www.westpharma.com
City of Kinston: https://www.ci.kinston.nc.us/
https://www.ci.kinston.nc.us/
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