SAO PAULO, 28th July, 2023 (WAM) -- At least eight people were killed and nearly a dozen were injured after a grain silo explosion on Wednesday at an agricultural co-operative in southern Brazil, the government of Parana state where the incident occurred and the company involved said on Thursday.
According to Reuters, the blast happened at the C.Vale co-operative in the small town of Palotina, about 600 km (370 miles) from the state's capital Curitiba. Parana is one of Brazil's top farm states.
C.Vale said in a statement that cause of the explosion cannot be determined at this time as rescue workers were still looking for a missing person.
A company spokesperson said seven of those who died were foreign workers, mostly Haitians, and one was Brazilian.
C.Vale said the silo where the explosion occurred stored about 12,000 metric tons of soybeans and 40,000 metric tons of corn.
The company, which stores grains in 125 units across five Brazilian states and in Paraguay, had said earlier in the day nearly a dozen people had been hospitalized after the blast, excluding the fatalities.
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