A soybean processing plant in Sergeant Bluff was closed down for maintenance when an explosion there this morning injured several people. The plant south of Sioux City’s uses flammable hexane gas to extract oil from soybeans and managers said some of the gas exploded, though they don’t yet know the cause. Doctor Larry Sellers is medical Director at Mercy Hospital in Sioux City. Sellers says three workers were evaluated and were able to leave. Five patients had to stay, as he explained four were critical and one serious, and they remained in the intensive care unit. Omaha-based Ag Processing Incorporated owns the plant, as well as five others in Iowa, and plants in Nebraska, Missouri and Minnesota. The soybean plant’s in the Port Neal Industrial Complex where an explosion in 1994 at the Terra Industries plant killed four people, injured more than fifteen and released a toxic cloud of ammonia.
SEARCH THIS SITE
RECENT NEWS
- Iowa housing market movement looks to be back where it was before COVID
- Grassley: Pentagon workers spent millions of pandemic dollars on personal expenses
- After missing Iowa trucker’s body found, wife says: ‘Things don’t add up.’
- Western Iowa Tech to pay millions to students to settle lawsuit
- $18.8 million workforce housing development planned in Spirit Lake