Rescue teams are still searching the charred rubble of homes for survivors of an explosion at a fertiliser plant that killed as many as 15 people, injured more than 160 and destroyed dozens of buildings.
Three or four volunteer firefighters were among the missing after the blast near the Texas town of West – 20 miles north of Waco – on Wednesday night.
Fire crews had been fighting a blaze at the West Fertilizer Company's factory for about 20 minutes before an explosion rocked the town, which has a population of 2700 people.
It produced a tremor equivalent to a small earthquake.
The plant had tanks of volatile anhydrous ammonia, including what initial reports said was a tanker-sized container like those carried on freight trains.
However, Sergeant William Patrick Swanton, of the Waco police department, told a press conference that the immediate threat from fumes appeared to have abated.
The blast destroyed 60 to 80 houses, officials said. It reduced a 50-unit apartment complex to what one local official called "a skeleton standing up" and left a horrific landscape of burned-out buildings and blackened rubble.
"It looks like a war zone with all the debris," McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara said.
Amid such devastation, the death toll remained a rough estimate of five to 15 people, Mr Swanton added.
Three hospitals in Waco and Dallas treated more than 160 people injured in the blast, but police said that total was likely to rise.
Mr Swanton said many people were still missing, including three or four volunteer firefighters.
They had been battling the blaze at the fertiliser plant, and evacuating nearby houses and a nursing home after concerns about possible dangerous fumes, when the explosion occurred.
Another firefighter, who is also a law enforcement official, was found badly injured. He is in a critical condition in hospital.
Texas Public Safety Department spokesman D L Wilson said half the town had been evacuated. Officials said 133 people had been removed from the nursing home.
Last night emergency crews were moving from house to house in a search-and-rescue operation.
Mr Swanton said: "That's good news. It means they are probably still getting injured people. They have not got to the point of no return where they don't think there is anybody still alive."
Eyewitness Kevin Smith said he had just climbed the stairs to the second floor of his home when he felt the blast.
He said: "The house exploded. It was just a bright flash and a roar, I thought it was lightning striking the house. I felt myself flying through the air.
"It took a second or two to realise the roof had caved in on me so I knew it wasn't lightning."
The cause of the fire remained unknown and the area is being treated as a crime scene, which is standard procedure according to police.
The incident is now being investigated by several US agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
President Barack Obama, who attended a memorial service for those killed in the Boston Marathon bombing yesterday, offered support and prayers to the victims in Texas.
Ground motion from the blast registered as a magnitude 2.1 seismic tremor and created a jolt felt 80 miles away in Dallas, the US Geological Survey reported.
The explosion came two days before the 20th anniversary of a fire in Waco that engulfed a compound inhabited by David Koresh and his followers in the Branch Davidian sect, ending a siege by federal agents. About 82 members of the sect and four federal agents died at Waco.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article