Eight people have died in a grain silo explosion that occurred Wednesday afternoon at an agro-industrial cooperative in the municipality of Palotina, in the Brazilian state of Paraná.
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The Paraná Fire Department reported that, at the time of the explosion, the deceased persons were in a tunnel that communicates different parts of the grain silo. The incident also left a dozen people injured, nine of them in serious condition.
Employees of the cooperative were carrying out maintenance work on the structure when the explosion occurred in the main silo of C.Vale, one of Brazil's largest agribusiness cooperatives. The causes have not yet been determined.
Of the eight fatalities, one was an employee and the others belonged to a subcontracted service company, C.Vale said in a statement. The Health Secretariat of the state of Paraná today released the identities of the fatalities, all of them men between the ages of 27 and 55, one of them Brazilian and the other seven Haitian nationals.
The tweet reads, "The accident occurred on the property of the C. Vale agro-industrial cooperative in Palotina, a municipality of about 30,000 inhabitants, on Wednesday evening."
C.Vale said the explosion destroyed the central grain reception unit. It also caused damage to three other silos in the agricultural complex.
The noise was heard for miles away from the site and even caused windows of nearby properties to shatter, according to residents of the town of Palotina.
Paraná state authorities set up a special search party made up of some 35 firefighters, rescue workers and trained dogs. A man who had been reported missing was rescued by firefighters, who worked throughout the early hours of the morning to search for and remove debris.
The agribusiness cooperative where the explosion occurred is considered the second largest in Paraná and the fifth-largest agricultural company in southern Brazil in terms of sales.