INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENTS
Eleven workers were killed after a 900,000-gallon chemical tank imploded at the Nippon Dynawave Packaging mill in Longview, Washington. Gov. Bob Ferguson called it the deadliest industrial accident in modern state history.
Industrial Accidents — ongoing coverage of workplace and industrial incidents affecting working America. Plant explosions, mining accidents, rail derailments, refinery fires, chemical releases, warehouse fatalities, and the OSHA, MSHA, and NTSB investigations that follow. We publish what we can confirm and update as the facts come in.
Evacuation zone for the May 21 chemical-tank emergency at the GKN Aerospace facility in Garden Grove, California. Map: SussyBoat / Wikimedia Commons (CC0).
A 34,000-gallon methyl methacrylate tank at the GKN Aerospace facility in Garden Grove, California began to off-gas and bulge after a refrigeration valve failed. Roughly 50,000 residents were ordered to evacuate.
A low-rise commercial building under construction, with open unguarded floor edges at height (file photo). Photo: Dwight Burdette / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0).
Enrique Cerroblanco Aguilar, 39, of Carpentersville, fell from a roof at a Palatine, Illinois construction site on May 22 and was killed. OSHA opened an investigation.
A Florida roofing company was cited for willful fall protection violations after a worker fell 25 feet to his death during a tarp installation. OSHA found the company had been warned about the same hazard before.
A 46-year-old Amazon worker collapsed and died at the PDX9 warehouse in Troutdale, Oregon on April 6. The death was not publicly disclosed for more than a week.
A 29-year-old construction worker was killed in Salt Lake City when a piece of metal hoisted by a crane became dislodged and fell. OSHA opened an investigation.
A worker was killed in an industrial accident involving a rock crusher in Swampscott, Massachusetts. The Essex County District Attorney's Office is investigating alongside OSHA.
A worker died at SpaceX's Starbase launch site in South Texas on May 15. OSHA opened an investigation. The agency said it would not release further information until the probe is complete.
A worker was killed in a hydrogen sulfide release at the Catalyst Refiners facility in Nitro, West Virginia. The CSB is investigating. H2S can kill at concentrations above 1,000 parts per million.
A 42-inch Delfin LNG pipeline ruptured during routine maintenance near Johnson Bayou, Louisiana. One worker was hospitalized in Port Arthur. PHMSA opened an investigation.
A 55-year-old worker in Carol Stream, Illinois was killed when an overhead crane gave way while he loaded a large metal spool onto a flatbed truck. OSHA opened an investigation.
A farmworker at Evans Farm in Bridgeville, Delaware was killed when several thousand tons of soybeans broke free after he opened a grain bin side cover. It was the state's first grain bin fatality in nearly two decades.
Kevin Lancaster, 61, died of blunt traumatic compressional injuries after being pinned between a tractor trailer and a loading dock at a Rivian warehouse in Illinois. OSHA opened a six-month investigation.
Two coal miners died in separate West Virginia incidents in less than a day. MSHA opened investigations at both Panther Eagle in Raleigh County and the Ohio County Mine in Marshall County.
Griffin Darrow, 25, of Cincinnati, died of smoke inhalation in a February fire and explosion at the Koch Foods plant in Fairfield, Ohio. OSHA opened an investigation.
A March 18 Union Pacific derailment near Richmond, Texas, released about 120,000 gallons of ethanol from seven breached tank cars. The NTSB preliminary report is out.
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