A massive chemical tank holding nearly a million gallons of a highly corrosive liquid known as white liquor imploded and collapsed Tuesday at a Nippon Dynawave paper mill in Longview, Washington, killing at least one worker and leaving nine others missing with no hope of rescue, according to emergency officials. Nine additional workers were injured, some critically, after the tank’s catastrophic failure sent a flood of caustic chemical through the facility along the Columbia River.
“We are not aware of any rescues that are yet to be made,” Cowlitz Fire and Rescue Chief Scott Goldstein said during a Tuesday evening news conference in which officials repeatedly described the situation as a recovery effort. He said the severity of injuries ranged from minor to critical, with some workers suffering burns or inhalation injuries, and confirmed that a responding firefighter was among those injured.
The effort to locate the missing workers was suspended until Wednesday morning, Goldstein said. Emergency responders planned to first stabilize the collapsed tank, which still held about 90,000 gallons (more than 340,000 liters) of white liquor, before resuming the search. Officials said they would operate only during daylight hours because of the risk of further collapse and leakage.
“We don’t know until we know, hopefully tomorrow, how we can stabilize the tank. Do we remove the product first? Do we stabilize the tank first or the vice versa?” Goldstein said.
Officials initially reported the tank had a capacity of 80,000 gallons but later revised that figure to 900,000 gallons (about 3.4 million liters) — enough to fill roughly one and a half Olympic-sized swimming pools. The chemical, a mixture of sodium hydroxide and sodium sulfide, is used with heat to break down wood fibers in the production of kraft paper, a durable packaging material.
The implosion came as thousands of residents of Southern California remained evacuated Tuesday due to a separate damaged chemical tank at an aerospace plant; all evacuation orders there were lifted Tuesday night.
No threat to the public was reported, authorities said.
Community waits for answers
At a community vigil Tuesday evening, dozens of Longview residents gathered at a local park to pray, light candles, and console one another. Crystal Moldenhauer, a Longview resident and former school board member, said she has friends who work at the plant and remained unaccounted for. She described the stress of the day as people called and texted one another trying to piece together what happened.
“We’re all still waiting for answers,” Moldenhauer said. “There’s families that have been torn apart, and we don’t know why.”
At the news conference, two upset parents who said their two sons worked at the plant interjected, saying they had not been contacted. Officials including Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, and U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez addressed those gathered, but no one from Nippon Dynawave spoke.
Some people waited at the company’s visitor entrance earlier Tuesday seeking information about loved ones. At a nearby union hall serving as a family assistance center, three women shared a tearful embrace before heading inside. Others coming and going were also in tears.
“It is something that is impactful, and we have support networks to support the workers as well as the emergency responders,” Goldstein said, noting that many responders have friends and relatives who work at the site.
Murray said during the news conference, “I know there’s a lot of questions about how all of this happened and I want to assure you that we will all continue to pressure to get answers to those questions. This community deserves that.”
The facility and its safety record
The Nippon Dynawave Packaging Co. facility is a pulp and paper mill along the Columbia River in Longview, a city of about 38,000 that has been tied to the timber and paper industries since its founding in the 1920s. The mill, which dates to 1953 and employs about 1,000 people, produces material for tissues, printing paper, cups, plates, cartons, and other goods. It sits in an industrial zone shared by other timber, paper, and chemical businesses.
According to the Washington Department of Labor and Industries, Nippon Dynawave has been fined a total of $3,400 for three separate health and safety violations since the start of 2021. One citation involved employees not wearing required face coverings; another found an employee exposed to a fall risk from a platform more than 4 feet (1.2 meters) off the ground; a third determined that equipment involved in a workplace accident — an amputated finger — had been moved before the state investigation was complete.
Two additional safety complaints were filed against the company on March 4 and May 6 of this year, according to the state’s labor and industries department. The department said both are unrelated to the tank implosion and remain open. The March complaint was an anonymous report about a valve on an aqua ammonia clarifier tank; the department noted that “it was not the tank that imploded.” The May complaint concerned a sinkhole created by a failed drain.
Cause remains unknown
The cause of the implosion was not yet determined, Goldstein said. A team from the Washington Department of Ecology was dispatched to evaluate environmental impacts after white liquor spilled into a drainage ditch, said Brittny Goodsell, the department’s spokesperson.
Just over 40 people died between January 2021 and mid-October 2023 from hazardous chemical incidents, according to a late-2023 report by a network of environmental justice organizations.