LONGVIEW, Wash. — Crews resumed the painstaking search Thursday for nine workers feared dead at a Washington state paper mill where a chemical tank ruptured, devastating a community where many families have worked in local mills for generations.
Authorities have said there was no hope of finding survivors of Tuesday’s tank rupture at the Nippon Dynawave Packaging Co. in Longview, which was of one of the deadliest U.S. workplace accidents in recent decades.
Two workers were confirmed dead and the nine still missing are presumed dead. Among the 11 are a grandfather who was always willing to help anyone and a young husband described as selfless and caring, according to friends who organized fundraisers for the victims’ families.
The partially collapsed tank spilled more than 500,000 gallons of a highly corrosive chemical mix called white liquor that is used to break down wood into certain types of paper products.
Fire officials said Wednesday that the recovery of the missing would be slow and deliberate because of the dangers posed by the remaining chemicals.
Authorities said the cause of the disaster is still under investigation, and they haven’t released the names of those who were killed.
Gilbert Bernal, a grandfather who was an electrician at the plant, was the first confirmed death, said his friend Todd Cornwell.
“He was one of the most genuinely good people that you’ve ever met. He would give you the shirt off his back if you needed it. He was always there willing to help in whatever needed to be done,” Cornwell said.
CJ Doran, who was 26, was among those presumed dead, according to a GoFundMe post verified by the crowdfunding site.
He was a husband who was “the spiritual leader of their family, the joy of their home, and the family provider,” the post said.
The tank failure also injured eight people, including a firefighter. Some suffered burns or inhalation injuries, authorities said.
The mill’s Japanese parent company, Nippon Paper Group, said in a statement Wednesday that it was offering its “deepest condolences and heartfelt sympathies to the bereaved families.”
Authorities said Wednesday that the the spill hadn’t contaminated the air and drinking water in and around Longview, a city of about 40,000 people near Washington’s border with Oregon that has deep ties to paper and lumber industries. Generations of families have worked in the mills, and many residents who spoke with the Associated Press had family members or friends who currently or previously worked at the Nippon Dynawave plant.
Crews were working to flush water from ditches near the plant and dilute it before pumping it into the Columbia River, which flows by the mill.
Some contamination has reached the river, but the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said it has had no noticeable effect.
Rush and Johnson write for the Associated Press. Johnson reported from Seattle. AP writers Martha Bellisle in Seattle, Kathy McCormack in Concord, N.H. and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed to this report.
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