LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Two people were killed in a plant explosion in Louisville, Kentucky, on Tuesday. The blast at Givaudan Sense Colour also damaged homes in the area east of the city.
The company that ran the plant, Givaudan International, said several other employees were hurt in the explosion which happened around 3 p.m. ET Tuesday, WDRB reported.
Officials said that all employees were accounted for, WHAS reported.
Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg said 12 people were hurt and taken to area hospitals. The injuries, according to Dr. Jason Smith, the chief medical officer at the University of Louisville Hospital, included burns and blunt force trauma.
“That’s the biggest problem with blast injuries, it’s a little bit of everything,” Smith said, according to WDRB. “It can be burns, it can be blunt injuries, it can be penetrating injuries, trapped by debris, chemical exposures.”
The plant produces caramel color for soft drinks, WHAS reported.
Officials had called it a hazardous materials incident and had initially ordered people to shelter-in-place for a 1-mile radius from the plant because they did not know what chemicals had been released into the air. Some homes and businesses near the plant had broken windows because of the explosion.
This is not the first time there has been a deadly incident at the plant. WHAS reported that someone was killed in 2003 when there was a “catastrophic vessel failure,” according to documentation from the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board. The plant was named D.D. Williamson & Co. at the time and also made the caramel coloring food additive. The report said that a process vessel was over-pressurized and blew, releasing aqueous ammonia and causing damage to the plant. One person was killed at that time, but four others working there were not hurt, the agency said.
The explosion’s cause was not determined.
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