An explosion at a chocolate factory in Pennsylvania on Friday killed five people and left six people missing, authorities said.
Officials in West Reading Borough said a number of other people were injured by the explosion at the R.M. Palmer Co. plant, about 95 kilometres northwest of Philadelphia.
The explosion just before 5 p.m. sent a plume of black smoke into the air, destroying one building at the facility and damaging a neighbouring building that included apartments.
Chief of police Wayne Holben said the cause of the explosion remains under investigation.
“It’s pretty levelled,” West Reading Borough Mayor Samantha Kaag said of the explosion site. “The building in the front, with the church and the apartments, the explosion was so big that it moved that building four feet [1.2 metres] forward.”
8 people taken to hospital
Eight people were taken to Reading Hospital on Friday evening, Tower Health spokesperson Jessica Bezler said.
Two people were admitted in fair condition and five were being treated and would be released, she said in an email. One patient was transferred to another facility, but Bezler provided no further details.
Kaag said people were asked to move back about a block in each direction from the site of the explosion but no evacuations were ordered.
Dean Murray, the borough manager of West Reading Borough, said some residents were displaced from the damaged apartment building.
Kagg said borough officials were not in immediate contact with officials from R.M. Palmer, which Murray described as “a staple of the borough.”
The company’s website says it has been making “chocolate novelties” since 1948 and now has 850 employees at its West Reading headquarters.
