Second victim dies after explosion at Louisiana chemical plan

AUTHORITIES say a second victim has died after an explosion and fire at a south Louisiana chemical plant.
Louisiana State Police Capt. Doug Cain said 47-year-old Scott Thrower died overnight at a hospital, a day after the blast at the plant.
Another worker, 29-year-old Zachary Green, died in Thursday's explosion at the Geismar plant owned by Williams Companies Inc.
Williams officials and a spokesman for the US Labour Department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration say the cause of the blast is not immediately known.
Alan Armstrong, the company's president and CEO, says it's unclear when operations will resume.
The ground-rattling explosion at a chemical plant in Louisiana ignited the powerful blaze, and the Louisiana health department said 73 people were treated at hospitals for injuries ranging from minor to critical following the explosion.
State police Capt. Doug Cain said a body was found by hazardous materials crews going through the aftermath of the blast at the facility owned by The Williams Companies, based in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Mr Cain said all of the plant's more than 300 workers have been accounted.
The company said the blast happened at 8.37am (11.37pm AEST). at the plant in an industrial area of Geismar, a Mississippi River community about 32 kilometres southeast of Baton Rouge. The cause was not immediately known.
The FBI said terrorism was not suspected.
A few homes and four other plants are within two miles (three kilometres) said Lester Kenyon, spokesman for Ascension Parish government. The Williams facility is one of scores of chemical and industrial facilities that dot the riverside between Baton Rouge and New Orleans.
A contract worker, Daniel Cuthbertson, 34, described a scene of "mass hysteria" immediately after the explosion, with workers scrambling over gates to get out of the plant.
"God was with me today because I know when I looked back, I barely made it. I know somebody was hurt. There's no way everybody escaped that," said Mr Cuthbertson, who was interviewed at an emergency staging area about three kilometres from the plant.
State Senator Troy Brown said the ground shook at his house, several miles from the plant.
"It felt like a three-second earthquake. It was a massive explosion," Mr Brown said.
He drove to a nearby gas station and saw flames 100 to 200 feet (30 to 61 metres) high .
"It was scary," he said.
Officials at area hospitals said a handful of patients were in critical or serious condition, though most seemed to have minor injuries.
Early tests did not indicate dangerous levels of any chemicals around the plant after the blast, but Mr Cain said air monitoring continued today..
Seven fire departments responded, Mr Kenyon said.
Mr Cain said the fire was out, but gas was being flared - burned at the top of high chimneys - in other parts of the plant. "There is still some controlled flaring going on, so people in the area are going to see smoke," he said.
Authorities said the plant makes ethylene and propylene - highly flammable gases that are basic building blocks in the petrochemical industry.
A thick plume of black smoke rose from the plant after the blast. In the early hours after the explosion, at a roadblock several miles away, where family members waited anxiously to hear about loved ones, flames were easily visible above the trees.