Firefighters have recovered the bodies of four workers in a sugar refinery blast Thursday evening that injured at least 62 people and caused a lot of fires that were difficult to put under control. Four workers are still classified missing.

The blast ripped through the plant at about 7 p.m. Thursday night setting fire to several buildings. By Friday morning, the fire had been put out in the site of the explosion, but firefighters could not go in because of structural damage.

Authorities could not yet determine the cause of the blast, but there was strong suspicion it was due to sugar dust in a silo where refined sugar is stored prior to being packaged. Officials investigating the explosion believe it occurred specifically in a room where workers were bagging sugar.

Sugar dust is a very fine powder that gets aerosolized; in that state, it can acquire an ionic charge that can ignite with static electricity, metal sparks, or a worker’s cigarette. Sugar dust explosions are quite rare, but they do happen. Sugar dust is suspected to have caused a non-fatal explosion in a Scottsbluff, Nebraska factory last summer, and another blast that killed a worker in Omaha in 1996.

There were 95 to 100 people thought to have been working in the area. Sixty-two people were taken to nearby hospitals. Forty were treated for minor injuries and released; 13 people had to be admitted; and 9 were airlifted to a burn center. Some of the critically injured had burns in as much as 80 to 90 percent of the body.

The plant on Port Wentworth is temporarily shut. A good majority of the facility was damaged in the fire. It is not known how long the plant will shut down. It was the biggest sugar refinery owned by Texas-based Imperial Sugar. In its last fiscal year, ending September 30, the Port Wentworth plant reported a production of 14.51 million hundredweight of sugar.

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration classify plants where plenty of sugar dust is present as “hazardous locations.” This classification is also given to coal preparation plants and producers of fireworks, medicines, and plastics.

The U.S. Department of Labor issued in October a new set of inspection guidelines covering workplaces where particles of combustible dust are present, including sugar dust.

Safety Tip:

• Avoid causing sparks and smoking in work areas with a lot of fine combustible dust suspended in the air.

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