Specialized equipment is being brought in to remove some 60,000 bushels of corn that was burning following an explosion at an elevator in Alton in northwest Iowa Wednesday. Deputy State Fire Marshal Dave Schipper says the damage at Midwest Farmers Cooperative was caused by a grain dust explosion.
Investigators will try to determine what sparked the explosion and also look at the dust collection unit. A Remsen farmer who was unloading a semi at the grain elevator was the only person injured when a concrete silo exploded.
Thirty-one-year-old Matt Galles is hospitalized in stable condition at a burn unit at a hospital in Lincoln, Nebraska. Employees of the business were on a work break at the time of the explosion about 3:15 Wednesday afternoon.