'Nuclear bomb' like blast in US leaves 5 to 15 people dead

Texas, April 18: An estimated five to 15 people were killed and up to 160 injured when a devastating blast, likened to a "nuclear bomb", ripped through a fertilizer plant that forced authorities to evacuate half the residents of a small Texas town.

Tommy Muska, the Mayor of the town of West, said, "It was like a nuclear bomb went off".

"There are a lot of people that got hurt. There are a lot of people that will not be here tomorrow," Muska said.

Sgt William Patrick Swanton of the nearby Waco Police Department said between five and 15 people had died while George Smith, the emergency management system director of the city, said fire officials fear that the number of casualties could rise as high as 60 to 70 dead.

The United States Geological Survey said the explosion last night at the West Fertilizer plant shook houses 50 miles away and measured as a 2.1-magnitude seismic event.

What caused the blast was not immediately known, CNN reported.

West, a township of mostly Czech immigrants, is a community of about 2,800 people, about 130 kilometres south of Dallas.

Authorities are going door to door in the area checking on residents.

The blast knocked out power to a large area surrounding the plant.

A member of the city council, Al Vanek, said there is a four-block area around the explosion "that is totally decimated."

Department of Public Safety spokesman D L Wilson said the damage was comparable to the destruction caused by the 1995 bomb blast that destroyed the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

Muska said that about six firefighters were unaccounted for and that 131 people were safely evacuated from a local nursing home, according to Waco Tribune.