Officials probe Clairton Coke Works blast
CLAIRTON — Investigators were looking for clues today into what caused an oven at a U.S. Steel plant to explode, injuring 20 workers and starting a fire that burned for hours.
The powerful blast in the coke oven at Clairton Coke Works happened about 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, Allegheny County spokesman Kevin Evanto said. Most of the injured workers were burned; one suffered chest pains.
"It's a miracle that anybody even walked away from that," Allegheny County Emergency Services Chief Bob Full said, adding the explosion was so mighty it bent steel beams and destroyed block walls.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration had a team of investigators on site, spokeswoman Leni Fortson said.
Jim Thompson, manager of the Allegheny County Air Quality Program who was at the plant at the time of the blast, said he saw a large cloud of smoke that dissipated quickly. He said that and other factors indicate the explosion might have been caused by the gas used to heat one of the coke ovens.
A maintenance worker died in a September 2009 explosion at the plant, which sits in a valley along the Monongahela River, about 20 miles south of Pittsburgh.
The company said 14 employees and six contractors were injured. About 1,500 people work at the plant, said Michael Wright, head of the health, safety and environment department for the United Steelworkers union.
A raw material used in steelmaking, coke is coal that is baked for a long time at a high temperature to remove impurities. The coal is baked in special ovens, several of which make up a coal battery; there are 12 batteries at the Clairton plant.
The battery where the explosion happened was shut down, but a U.S. Steel spokeswoman said the rest of the plant was operating normally.
At Pittsburgh's West Penn Hospital, two workers in their 50s were in critical condition with chemical burns in their airways and burns to their heads, necks and faces, said Dr. Larry Jones, the hospital's director of emergency medicine.
