Coke oven explodes at plant, injuring 21

July 15, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

CLAIRTON, Pa.

An oven at a U.S. Steel plant near Pittsburgh exploded Wednesday, injuring 21 workers, at least three critically, causing a fire that burned for hours, emergency officials said.

The powerful blast in the coke oven at United States Steel Corp.’s Clairton Coke Works happened around 9:30 a.m., Allegheny County spokesman Kevin Evanto said. Most of the workers suffered burns; one suffered chest pains.

“It’s a miracle anybody even walked away from that,” Allegheny County Emergency Services Chief Bob Full told reporters at the scene. He said the explosion was so mighty it bent steel beams and destroyed block walls.

Everyone had been accounted for, and the cause of the explosion was being investigated, union and company officials said. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration had a team on site, spokeswoman Leni Fortson said.

“It was a big boom and then everything just went black,” janitor John Chappell, 59, of Clairton, told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review as he left UPMC Mercy. He was not injured.

“It was pitch black but you could tell there was debris flying all over the place,” Chappell told the newspaper. “I’m just blessed because I know it could have been worse.”

A maintenance worker died in a September 2009 explosion at the plant.

An air-quality inspector at the plant at the time of the blast said he saw a large cloud of smoke that dissipated quickly, said Jim Thompson, manager of the Allegheny County Air Quality Program. Thompson said that and other factors indicate the explosion may have been caused by the gas used to heat one of the coke ovens.

The explosion happened in the B battery, which consists of 75 ovens located on the northern side of the plant. It was shut down after the explosion. The other batteries remained open.

The plant sits along the Monongahela River about 20 miles south of Pittsburgh. It employees about 1,500 people said Michael Wright, head of the health, safety and environment department for the United Steelworkers union.

U.S. Steel calls its Clairton plant the biggest coke manufacturing facility in the U.S., producing about 4.7 million tons per year.

At Pittsburgh’s West Penn Hospital, two workers in their 50s were in critical condition with chemical burns in their airways as well as burns to their heads, necks and faces, said Dr. Larry Jones, the hospital’s director of emergency medicine.

A third worker, in his 40s, was in serious condition with burns on his head, neck, face and hands, and an ankle fracture, Jones said.

Six workers, men ranging in age from 20 to 50, were taken to UPMC Mercy, said Dr. Alain Corcos, medical director of UPMC Mercy’s trauma and burn centers. One was in critical condition with airway burns.

All are expected to recover he said.