Fears of toxic smoke after an industrial explosion in Germany

BERLIN: A major industrial explosion and subsequent fire at a commercial waste disposal plant rattled the city of Leverkusen in western Germany on Tuesday, killing at least one worker and injuring more than a dozen others.
Federal authorities had quickly declared the situation an “extreme threat” and warned local residents to avoid the area, stay indoors, shut their windows and doors and switch off home air conditioning units fed by outside air, as they assessed the toxicity of the smoke that billowed out from the site.
“A full analysis of the cloud that we all saw over the city today is not available,” Lars Friedrich, the director of Chempark, the industrial park where the explosion occurred, said during a news conference Tuesday afternoon.
Friedrich noted that such an analysis could take several days.
The city of Leverkusen confirmed one death and 16 workers with injuries, including four who were gravely injured. Four workers are still missing.
“I still have hope that the four that are still missing will be found alive,” Friedrich said.
The cause of the explosion, which occurred around 9:40 am local time, is still unknown. But the fire broke out in a tank depot, which held industrial solvents, sending a plume of thick black smoke billowing from the plant.
The wind quickly blew the smoke over inhabited parts of the area, which worried authorities, who warned local residents of the potential danger through a federal warning app and with sirens citywide. It took firefighters around three hours to extinguish the blaze.
The initial explosion was heard from miles away. By midday, authorities said the smoke no longer posed an acute danger.
Uwe Richrath, Leverkusen’s mayor, called it a “tragic day” for the city and noted the town’s historic links to the chemical industry, the most famous of which is the Bayer chemical and pharmaceutical giant, which is based not far from the site of the explosion.
“Everyone in Leverkusen knows the chemical industry; everyone in the city might have even had someone in their families who worked there,” Richrath said.