Officials Say No Toxic Insecticide Released In Explosion At West Virginia Chemical Plant

Institute, WV (AHN) - An explosion at a West Virginia chemical plant Thursday night killed one worker while critically injuring another and produced a fireball seen 12 miles away in Charleston.

The explosion at the Bayer CropScience chemical plant in Institute happened at about 10:30 p.m.

A Bayer official told Kanawha County officials that the three chemicals involved in the explosion were dimethyl disulfide, methylisobutylketone and hexane.

All three are "harmful irritants," Kanawha officials told the Charleston Gazzette.

Because of concerns over the possibility of inhalation of harmful chemicals, officials took the safety precaution of closing nearby Interstate 64, and several other area roads, for several hours. They also issued a shelter-in-place order for thousands of area residents, which remained in force until 2 a.m. Friday.

The plant manufactures the highly toxic insecticide methomyl but the explosion reportedly occurred in a different area of the plant and involved a flammable waste substance produced when manufacturing the pesticide.

Methomyl is is a highly toxic compound in EPA toxicity class I, classified as a restricted use pesticide by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency because of its high acute toxicity to humans, according to a pesticide information profile on the Cornell University website.

Because Methomyl is poisonous to humans, affecting the nervous system through inhalation, as well as contact, when it is used on crops, farm workers are not allowed back into the field for one to seven days depending on the crop.

Methomyl is used on "vegetable, fruit and field crops, cotton, commercial ornamentals, and in and around poultry houses and dairies," and works by inhibiting the proper functioning of the nervous system of insects, according to information from Cornell University.

Officials say no toxic chemicals have been released outside the plant, according to local reports.