Flames shoot into the air at the Bayer Plant in Institute, W.Va., Thursday, Aug. 28, 2008. An explosion at the chemical plant, which sent a fireball hundreds of feet into the air and could be felt miles away, occurred about 10:25 p.m. Thursday, killing one worker and injuring another.

INSTITUTE, W.Va. (AP) _ Federal officials are investigating the cause of a plant explosion that rocked an area west of Charleston, hurling a fireball hundreds of feet into the air, killing one worker and injuring a second.



Among many other chemicals, the Bayer CropScience plant produces methyl isocyanate, which killed at least 15,000 people in the infamous leak at a Union Carbide pesticide factory in Bhopal, India in 1984. But the chemical was not involved in the explosion, Kanawha County Emergency Management Director Dale Petry said, and was stored in steel-wrapped underground containers that were far from the blast.



State Department of Environmental Protection spokeswoman Kathy Cosco said the primary chemical involved, methyl isobutyl ketone, is highly flammable but not especially toxic.