At Least One Killed in Louisiana Plant Explosion

At least one person has died and another is missing and presumed dead after a large explosion at a Louisiana chemical plant on Thursday morning. A spokeswoman for the state's department of environmental quality told the Los Angeles Times that another 49 people were taken from the plant in ambulances and that the cause of the blast is still unknown. Located roughly 60 miles northwest of New Orleans and 20 miles southeast of Baton Rouge, the area surrounding the Williams Chemical Plant is primarily industrial, unlike the fertilizer plant in residential Waco, Texas, where an explosion occurred earlier this spring.