A tragic industrial accident at a paper manufacturing plant in Washington state has claimed the lives of 11 workers after a chemical storage tank ruptured, authorities confirmed on Saturday.
Emergency recovery teams located the bodies of the remaining nine workers who had been reported missing following Tuesday’s incident at a facility operated by Nippon Dynawave Packaging in Longview. Two fatalities were confirmed shortly after the accident, bringing the final death toll to 11.
According to officials, the disaster occurred when a storage tank containing white liquor—a chemical solution used in paper pulp production composed of sodium hydroxide and sodium sulfide—imploded inside the facility. The tank reportedly held approximately 900,000 gallons (3.4 million litres) of the substance at the time of the failure.
Search and rescue operations continued for several days as crews worked through debris and utilized drones to assess damaged sections of the plant. Authorities have now confirmed that all workers previously unaccounted for have been recovered.
Environmental monitoring conducted after the incident found that some chemical contamination reached the nearby Columbia River. However, officials stated that testing has so far shown no harmful impact on local air quality or Longview’s drinking water supply.
Nippon Dynawave Packaging is a subsidiary of Japan-based Nippon Paper Industries, one of the country’s largest paper manufacturers. The company acquired the Longview facility from timber giant Weyerhaeuser in a $225 million deal and established the subsidiary in 2016.
Investigators are continuing efforts to determine the cause of the tank failure, while authorities and company officials have pledged full cooperation with the ongoing inquiry.
