One person is dead and others are injured after an apparent explosion and fire overnight at the Tyson Foods facility in Camilla, according to the Mitchell County coroner.
A boiler exploded at the poultry processing facility, according to a statement from the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which represents the 1,600 workers at the plant.
“(It) is too early to tell what happened last night, but there must be a thorough investigation into this incident, and workers must be able to work safely in the facility,” union President Stuart Appelbaum and Edgar Fields, president of the union’s Southeast Council, said in the joint statement.
Mitchell County Coroner Jamey Thompson told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution the incident started at the Tyson plant on U.S. 19 around 11 p.m. Thursday. He said he doesn’t know yet what caused the explosion, but it seems to have caused a wall behind the building that is attached to the plant to collapse.
A fire burned at the facility, according to Thompson, who said fire crews were still on scene when he left the site at around 2 a.m. Friday morning.
A Tyson Foods spokesperson said the company is working closely with local authorities to determine the cause of the fire at the facility that resulted in a death and several injuries.
“Right now we are still gathering the facts, but ensuring the safety of our team members is our top priority, and we are conducting a full investigation into the cause of the fire,” the spokesperson said in an e-mailed statement.
The woman who died was not a worker at the facility; she was the wife of one of the truck drivers who hauls products in and out of the facility, Thompson said. He did not disclose where she was in the facility when she died, pending the completion of the investigation.
Her body could not be immediately recovered from the scene hours after the incident because she was still trapped by debris, Thompson said. He did not disclose how many people were injured. The union said several of its members were severely burned by the explosion.
The U.S. Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has opened an investigation into the incident.
In 2019, Tyson expanded its Camilla plant, adding 35,000 square feet to the facility and hiring an additional 100 workers, according to a release at the time from Gov. Brian Kemp’s office.
The company recently sold its facility in Vienna for $174 million, according to a September filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
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