Update, 9 am Eastern: Tesoro has issued a statement saying that one worker has died from the blast. There are still 3 people missing.
AN EXPLOSION AND FIRE AT A TESORO REFINERY in Anacortes, Washington, has injured four workers but there are three more that are missing.
KIRO-TV / Erickson
The blast occurred early Friday morning just before 1 am and shook homes for miles around, generating a plethora of 9-1-1 calls. A Tesoro Refinery spokesman says that the blast and fire took place in a naptha unit of the complex, and it was put out by the refinery’s emergency crews. One of the nearby residents grabbed his video camera and shot a few moments of the fire:
KOMO-TV Ch. 4 Seattle has filed this video that appears to have been taken from either a news helicopter or a plant security camera:
The four injured workers were airlifted to area hospitals with one of them in critical condition.
The Anacortes refinery is one of seven that the independent company operates in Washington and is located about 70 miles north of Seattle on Puget Sound. It can refine about 120,000 barrels of crude daily, primarily into gasoline, jet fuel and diesel to markets in Washington and Oregon, according to the company.
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