9 missing after Washington paper mill tank rupture and officials say there’s no hope of survivors

The Associated Press
May 27, 2026, 7:30 PM


Damage is seen at Nippon Dynawave Packaging Co., after a tank containing hazardous liquid imploded, on Tuesday, May 26, 2026, in Longview, Wash. (Karen Ducey/The Seattle Times via AP)

LONGVIEW,, Wash. (AP) — Crews resumed the grim search Wednesday for nine people presumed killed at a Washington state paper mill where a chemical tank ruptured a day earlier in one of the deadliest U.S. workplace accidents in years. ... The likely death toll rose to 11, including the missing, after another person who was injured died, authorities said Wednesday.

Authorities said there was no hope of finding more survivors following Tuesday’s tank failure at the Nippon Dynawave Packaging Co. in Longview, which also injured another eight people, including a firefighter who was treated and released by a hospital.

If the 11 deaths are confirmed, it would be one of the deadliest industrial accidents in the U.S. in recent decades — alongside a series of blasts that killed 16 people at an explosives plant in Tennessee last fall; a fire and detonation that killed 14 people at a fertilizer plant in Texas in 2013; the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion that killed 11 people in 2010; and an explosion at a West Virginia coal mine that killed 29 people in 2010.

Officials said Wednesday that the paper mill tank spilled more than 500,000 gallons (1.9 million liters) of “white liquor,” a highly destructive chemical mixture used in paper manufacturing.

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