RITTERHUDE, Germany (AP) — An explosion rocked a chemical waste facility Tuesday night near Bremen in northwestern Germany, injuring several people, police said.
Police told the DPA news agency that one person was severely burned in the blast and that the explosion damaged a nearby residential area in the town of Ritterhude, which is in the county of Verden-Osterholz.
About 30 to 40 houses were damaged — some of them only 20 meters (65 feet) from the facility — as the blast shattered windows. Ripped doors from their frames and tore off roofs, police told DPA. A few houses were in danger of collapsing.
The injured man was found in the rubble and several local residents were slightly injured, police and firefighters said.
The 9 p.m. blast in Ritterhude could be heard for miles and sparked an intense fire.
"We had always looked upon this facility with worry," Ritterhude's mayor, Susanne Geils, told DPA. "We've always said that this company is out of place here."
Marcus Neumann, spokesman for the local Verden-Osterholz police, said authorities believe the injured man is a plant employee whose car was found outside the plant.
Neumann said the employee responded to an alarm on his beeper, and drove from his home to the plant to investigate. He told DPA that a second employee might be missing.
Neumann said the cause of the blast was not clear, as the site was still not yet accessible to investigators.
It took four hours before firefighters could get the blaze under control, and they expected to work on extinguishing it through the morning hours.
The plant is owned by Organo Fluid GmbH, which specializes in recovering valuable solvents from mixtures of solvents.
UPDATE
BERLIN (AP) — Police in northwestern Germany say they have yet to determine what caused a massive explosion that seriously injured one person at a chemical processing company.
Police spokesman Marcus Neumann said Wednesday that investigators had arrived at the site in Ritterhude, near Bremen, but were unable to enter because firefighters were still working to douse the embers.
Neumann said a person who was reported missing turned out to be a 60-year-old company employee who suffered lift-threatening burns when he rushed to the scene of the blast.
The explosion at the Organo Fluid company happened Tuesday at 9 p.m. local time (1900 GMT) and could be heard for miles. About 300 firefighters worked all night to extinguish the intense fire.