Authorities reported that there was an explosion at a liquefied natural gas storage facility in Eastern Washington last Monday.
Komo News reports that no one was killed despite 250-pound pieces of steel being thrown into the air.
The explosion happened at the Williams Northwest Pipeline LNG storage facility near Plymouth, Washington. Five employees of the gas plant were injured.
“It was an extremely powerful explosion, the initial explosion,” Benton County sheriff’s Deputy Joe Lusignan told reporters. “Fortunately we didn’t have any subsequent ones after that.”
The facility was taken offline and vaporized gas continued to leak out of a damaged 1.2 billion cubic foot storage tank.
In addition to disrupting operations at the facility, many trains that used a nearby rail line were delayed because the explosion damaged the tracks. The exact cause of the explosion is unknown.