A powerful blast ripped through a military explosives manufacturing plant in rural Tennessee on Friday morning, causing multiple deaths and rattling homes miles away, authorities said. The explosion happened at Accurate Energetic Systems near the town of Bucksnort, about 60 miles southwest of Nashville, the AP reports. WTVF reports that at least 19 people are unaccounted for. Sources tell the station that the blast happened around shift change time, when the plant would have been busy with people coming and going. Humphreys County Sheriff Chris Davis said there were "some" fatalities and multiple people missing, reports ABC News.
"We do have several people at this time unaccounted for. We are trying to be mindful of families and that situation," Davis said. Smoke and secondary blasts forced rescuers to keep their distance from the burning site. Video from the scene showed a burning debris field with smoke billowing into the air. The Tennessean reports that the facility, which has eight buildings on a 1,300-acre site, specializes in high-grade explosives for demolition, with its website saying it makes everything from "linear shaped charges to claymore mines." One person was killed and three injured in an explosion at the site in 2014.
Nunnelly resident Beyonica Holt, whose home is 10 to 15 miles from the plant, tells the Tennessean that she felt a massive explosion around 7:50am. "I thought I was going to die. It knocked stuff off my shelves. I thought we were at war or something," she says. "I thought it was going to blow out my windows—it didn't, but that's how big it was. I've never been in an earthquake, but I thought that's what it was."
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