Worker Missing in Sugar Refinery Blast

Huge storage silos lay crumbled on the ground and sugar was scattered up to a mile away Sunday after an explosion described as a ball of blue flames ripped through a major sugar refinery.

One person was missing and 15 others were injured, one critically.

The cause of the blast was not immediately known, but the blast followed a bolt of lightning, one witness said. Company officials said sugar dust might have been ignited.

About 150 people work at the Western Sugar Co. plant but only 31 were in the plant when the explosion occurred late Saturday.

Those workers in the plant apparently were just returning from a break, plant manager Owen Palm said.

Officials said Sunday that all employees had been laid off, adding that they hoped it would be temporary and that the plant would be ready to reopen in 60 days.

Officials believed that the missing person, Gene Juergens, was trapped somewhere inside the factory, but unstable structures forced a suspension of search-and-recovery attempts.

Mayor Mark Harris said searchers hoped that the missing man somehow survived the blast. “Perhaps some pockets developed where the rubble did not have a crushing effect,” he said.

The explosion leveled seven of eight silos at the plant and scattered plywood and sugar up to a mile away around this city of 14,100 people in western Nebraska, 20 miles from the Wyoming state line.