2nd Body Found in Rubble From Chemical Plant Blast : Disaster: Fires continue to burn. Texas officials’ hopes of finding 22 missing workers alive begin to dwindle.

Searchers gingerly picking their way through the twisted wreckage of a Phillips Petroleum Co. petrochemical plant Tuesday found a second body, and there seemed to be little hope for the 22 other employees who have been missing since a huge explosion rocked the plant Monday afternoon.

The explosion, which injured at least 109 people, destroyed half of the huge plant, a Phillips executive said. It ripped through the facility and sent into the air a huge orange ball of flame that was described by one witness as looking like the detonation of an atomic bomb.

Debris was tossed for miles. Windows were broken in buildings 3 miles away from the plant, which is situated in the heart of the Houston Ship Channel industrial complex.

On Tuesday, the fires, although under control, were still burning at the plant. Officials said they would have to burn themselves out because, in some cases, applying water to douse the flames would create toxic fumes.

Blocks of concrete were strewn about from the force of the blast, and metal pipes lay in crumpled, blackened heaps. By mid-afternoon, smoke was still rising from the chemical plant, which manufactures plastics most commonly used to produce such things as milk containers and plastic bags.

The families of those who were missing gathered at the plant Tuesday, standing in small knots in a parking lot, separated from the press by guards. Some employees came to watch. Fermin Lieja came to get his car back.

He had been working in the plant on Monday, installing insulation, when the warning siren went off. He, like many others, began running.

“Everyone started running,” he said. “They don’t have a special area to run to where it is secure. Everyone started running everywhere, especially to where the cars are parked.

“When we got to the parking lot, the police wouldn’t let anyone leave because they had everything blocked off. We started running toward the ship channel and the explosions kept going off.”

Lieja and others took small boats across the ship channel, where buses were waiting to take them to the Red Cross. But, more than 24 hours later, he was unable to get his car, which was still in the parking lot.

There was another reason he was here. “We’re waiting on word of friends,” he said.

As searchers began looking through the rubble, they found the second victim beneath tons of twisted steel and concrete. The damage to the plastics facility, one of five plants operated by Phillips on the sprawling 800-acre complex, was far greater than was first thought.

“The thing that is important to realize is that there has been a tremendous amount of damage,” said Bob Benz, the plastics division manager at the Pasadena facility. “It’s difficult to get in because of all the concrete and pipes and rubble in the area.”

The environmental director at the plant said the cause of the blast was a broken seal on a chemical reactor.

Benz said the damage was confined to the plastics facility but that half of the plant had been destroyed, including offices. All of the Phillips complex was closed Tuesday and employees were asked not to report to work.

Jere Smith, a Phillips spokesman who flew from the corporate headquarters in Bartlesville, Okla., on Monday said that the next step was damage assessment.

“Today, the big thing is to go in as quickly as possible and assess the damage and locate those we have not found yet,” he said.

Meanwhile, Harris County Sheriff Johnny Klevenhagen said after surveying the damage that he did not see how anyone could have survived the explosion. “From looking at the plant . . . it would be doubtful.”