LOS ANGELES, May 28 — A chemical incident at a paper plant in the northwestern US has killed two people, with nine others missing and feared dead, officials said yesterday. 

A huge tank holding tens of thousands of gallons (liters) of a highly caustic substance imploded on Tuesday at the plant in Longview, Washington state, sparking a major operation.

Two people have been confirmed dead, and efforts to rescue the nine unaccounted for have now been abandoned, Scott Goldstein of Cowlitz 2 Fire and Rescue said.

“We have declared this incident a transition from rescue to recovery as of this morning,” he told a press conference.

Nine other people were injured.

Goldstein said the accident at the Nippon Dynawave Packaging Company happened during an early morning shift change when a 900,000-gallon (3.4 million-liter) tank containing a large quantity of a substance called white liquor ruptured.

White liquor is a highly alkaline solution containing sodium hydroxide and sodium sulfide that is used to break down wood chips and create the pulp from which paper is made.

Vehicles, buildings and equipment were damaged in the spill, and specialist firefighters are still trying to establish where the missing people are.

Pictures from the scene show an enormous tank that has crumpled and is listing.

Goldstein said it was believed around 25,000 gallons remained in the tank, but that it was stable.

“We still have contingency plans in place and resources coming if we need to change to stablizing and removing the tank,” he said.

Washington Governor Bob Ferguson said the community of Longview, which has a population of around 40,000, was hit hard.

“We’re bracing ourselves for this being the deadliest industrial tragedy in modern Washington state history,” he said.

“When you have a tragedy of that scale, the impacts on individuals, families and on communities is profound.”

Nippon Dynawave Packaging, which is a subsidiary of Japan’s Nippon Paper Group, says on its website that it produces eight billion single-serve containers every year, supplying customers in North America, Asia, and around the world.

The incident in Washington came days after tens of thousands of people were forced from their homes in Orange County, California, after a tank of volatile chemicals began overheating.

Firefighters worked to cool the 7,000 gallons of methyl methacrylate, which had been threatening to explode, sending a plume of toxic fumes over a heavily populated area just a few miles (kilometers) from Disneyland.

All evacuation orders were lifted on Tuesday after the immediate danger was declared to have passed. — AFP