An explosion at BP's Texas City refinery on 23 March 2005 killed 14 workers and sent more than 70 others to hospital, making it the deadliest industrial accident in Texas in nearly six decades. The blast struck at 1:20 p.m. at the 1,200-acre coastal facility on Galveston Bay, about 55 kilometers south of Houston.
BP said the explosion originated in an isomerization unit. The plant had been offline for scheduled annual maintenance, a period when refineries carry elevated accident risk. Local firefighters brought the resulting blaze under control after several hours.
Black smoke climbed to roughly 4,000 feet before winds pushed it out over the Gulf of Mexico. Authorities ordered schoolchildren and nearby residents to remain indoors for more than two hours, then concluded there was no environmental hazard.
BP said terrorism was not a factor. Investigators from the U.S. Chemical Safety Board were expected on-site Thursday. The refinery, BP's largest in the United States, supplies about 30 percent of the company's North American oil output and roughly three percent of total U.S. production. The previous major industrial disaster in Texas City occurred in April 1947, when ships carrying ammonium nitrate exploded at port and killed an estimated 600 people.
Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this AFP wire report, first published in March 2005, in its own words.