Refinery blast kills at least 4

Dust is blamed, and experts repeat call for tighter rules

WASHINGTON -- Volatile dust was blamed Friday in an explosion that leveled a Georgia sugar refinery, and crews pulled four bodies from tunnels beneath the mangled mass of metal and beams left by the blast.

At least four people known to be inside during the explosion at the Imperial Sugar plant in Port Wentworth, near Savannah, were missing. Savannah police Sgt. Mike Wilson said no attempts would be made to find more bodies until today, when heavy equipment will be brought in to remove debris.

More than 30 employees were rushed to hospitals.

At least 118 workers were inside the plant Thursday night when the explosion shook the ground and shattered windows blocks away, The New York Times reported.

"I saw people come running out burnt, screaming, hollering, their skin hanging off them," said Jason Perry, who hurried to the plant after the blast to search for an uncle who was working that night.

"One lady hit the ground, and then the medical was on her so fast you couldn't see what was going on," Perry told the Times.

Investigators were unable to determine what sparked the explosion. Imperial President and CEO John Sheptor said sugar dust in a silo where refined sugar was stored before being packaged likely ignited like gunpowder.

In the past 28 years, about 300 dust explosions have killed more than 120 workers and injured several hundred others at sugar plants, food processors, and many industrial and wood manufacturers. Most are preventable by removing fine-grain dust as it builds up, experts say.

But that has not been required by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which is part of the Labor Department. The U.S. Chemical Safety Board, which investigates industrial accidents, concluded in a report in 2006 that OSHA had no comprehensive regulation to prevent dust explosions and that its program "inadequately addresses" the problem.

Dust blamed in N.C.

Three major explosions at a variety of plants in 2003 prompted the safety board to study the issue and make its recommendations.

One of them, at West Pharmaceutical Services in Kinston, N.C., killed six employees and injured 38. Investigators said the January 2003 explosion was caused by rubber dust that had accumulated above a suspended ceiling and somehow caught fire.

The plant reopened in 2004 and in 2006 announced plans to expand.

A 20-year-old OSHA dust regulation aimed only at grain plants and silos is effective, the safety board said, and shows why regulations are needed for other companies.

OSHA officials said they began stepped-up enforcement on dust issues in October, but other safety officials say that's not enough and that detailed dust safety regulations are needed.

"This is an extremely dangerous component that is not regulated," former safety board Chairwoman Carolyn Merritt told The Associated Press on Friday. Dust explosion situations "are so dangerous that people have got to pay attention to this. There should be an outcry."

Minuscule dust particles -- the smaller the more explosive -- often form clouds in enclosed places such as manufacturing plants or sugar mills. These clouds are the perfect fuel for a fire that can be set off by any spark or form of ignition. The first explosion kicks up more dust and even more and bigger explosions follow in rapid succession, said C. James Dahn, president of Safety Consulting Engineers of Schaumburg, Ill., and an expert on the topic.

"The biggest problems we have in plants is that people are not aware of the amount of dust that's in their plant," Dahn said. "I've walked into plants where dust is nearly half a foot deep and people are saying, 'It's just dust; we don't worry about it.' They did when it blew the plant apart. Dust can be an explosive hazard."

'Act now,' pair says

Two California Democrats in Congress who serve on labor panels, George Miller and Lynn Woolsey, wrote the labor secretary Friday, saying, "A mandatory combustible dust standard should be a high priority of OSHA. ... We strongly urge you to act now."

By law OSHA was supposed to respond within six months to the safety board's November 2006 recommendations to adopt a mandatory regulation. Except for a letter a year ago acknowledging receipt of the report and its recent special enforcement emphasis, it has not done so, officials said.

Merritt, who was appointed in 2002 by President Bush and left the board last year, said she and her colleagues repeatedly pressed OSHA to do something.

OSHA has not ignored the issue, said agency spokesman Mike Wald. In October 2007 it adopted a "national emphasis" on enforcement of safety concerns related to dust.

Wald said compliance officers were visiting plants, checking on dust and using existing regulations. However, Merritt and other safety experts say those regulations aren't specific enough.