An explosion at a US corn processing plant near the city of Decatur, Illinois left eight workers with injuries on 10 September. The incident happened at agricultural origination and processing company Archer-Daniels-Midland’s (ADM) East plant and comes just two weeks after a fire at the same facility injured two firefighters.
In a statement, ADM said that an explosion occurred at approximately 19:11 local time at the East Plant in the company’s processing complex in Decatur. ADM immediately contacted the Decatur Fire Department, which remained on scene overnight. ADM said that several employees were injured and transported to a local hospital for treatment. The company added that the cause of the blast is unknown.
The facility in Decatur is ADM’s North American headquarters and houses a soybean crushing plant and a corn mill. It also produces ethanol biofuel at the site.
The explosion follows a fire at the plant on 28 August which left two firefighters with injuries. A total of 46 firefighters from the Decatur Fire Department, as well as several members of other local departments, attended the fire which broke out on the upper floors of the ADM East plant.
The two firefighters were transported to hospital with injuries sustained during attempts to extinguish the fire and were later released. ADM said in a statement that the fire was first discovered by employees in the feed house of the processing plant. The entire facility was evacuated immediately and no employees were injured.
