By Leonardo Benassatto and Ana Mano
SAO PAULO (Reuters) -At least eight people were killed and nearly a dozen were injured after a grain silo explosion on Wednesday at an agricultural co-operative in southern Brazil, the government of Parana state where the incident occurred and the company involved said on Thursday.
The blast happened at the C.Vale co-operative in the small town of Palotina, about 600 km (370 miles) from the state’s capital Curitiba. Parana is one of Brazil’s top farm states.
C.Vale said in a statement that cause of the explosion cannot be determined at this time as rescue workers were still looking for a missing person.
A company spokesperson said seven of those who died were foreign workers, mostly Haitians, and one was Brazilian.
C.Vale said the silo where the explosion occurred stored about 12,000 metric tons of soybeans and 40,000 metric tons of corn.
The company, which stores grains in 125 units across five Brazilian states and in Paraguay, had said earlier in the day nearly a dozen people had been hospitalized after the blast, excluding the fatalities.
Jose Ricken, president of Parana’s farm cooperative group OCEPAR, told reporters that this was an isolated case, adding there had been no such incidents in the area “in a long time.”
A similar explosion took place in 1993, C.Vale confirmed.
Ricken declined to speculate on the causes of the explosion, deferring questions to authorities as investigations are ongoing.
Grain dust particles are highly combustible and can cause fires or explosions in confined spaces such as grain storage facilities, although it is unclear what happened in this case.
The particles can be from wheat, oats, barley, or other types of grain that form layers or become airborne in an enclosed space. Research shows corn starch is one of the most dangerous and volatile.
Fire Department official Manoel Vasco said dogs were helping in the search for the missing worker potentially trapped under the rubble and grains.
Agriculture Minister Carlos Favaro and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva both posted on messaging platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that they received news of the explosion and deaths with sadness.
Acting Parana Governor Darci Piana headed to Palotina, a city of some 35,000 people, alongside state secretaries to follow the rescue operations and provide support to the families, the government said.
(Reporting by Leonardo Benassatto and Ana Mano; Writing by Gabriel Araujo; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Alison Williams and Bill Berkrot)
