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An explosion at the Evraz electric arc furnace (EAF) steel mill in Pueblo, Colorado, has injured eight people, with a labor union local indicating some of the injuries are serious.
An ABC News online item indicates the explosion occurred Saturday, May 29, and caused injuries to eight people. A Facebook post by United Steelworkers of America (USW) Local 2102 confirms the count of eight injuries and adds that five people “were treated and released” while two are in an intensive care unit (ICU) and another “was transferred to a burn unit in Denver.”
The ABC online report says a Pueblo firefighter told its local broadcast affiliate the furnace at the mill “used to melt steel” had “exploded.”
Firefighters responding and arriving at the scene reportedly waited outside the plant for 130 tons of molten steel located inside to “cool down before they went in and operated.”
Evraz North America is based in Chicago and on its website says of its scrap-fed Pueblo EAF location, “The equivalent of more than 1 million cars per year are melted in our EAF to keep up with the steel production required by expanded capacity at our rail, rod and bar, and seamless pipe mills.”
Evraz North America, which has facilities in Canada and the United States, is part of Moscow- and London-based Evraz plc, which also operates facilities in Russia and the Czech Republic.