• WEST, Texas (AP) -- Rescue workers searched rubble that witnesses compared to a warzone early Thursday for survivors of a fertilizer plant explosion in a small Texas town that injured dozens of people and killed an unknown number of others. The blast left the factory a smoldering ruin and leveled buildings for blocks in every direction.
• The explosion in downtown West, about 20 miles north of Waco, shook the ground with the strength of a small earthquake and could be heard dozens of miles away. It sent flames shooting into the night sky and rained burning embers, shrapnel and debris down on shocked and frightened residents.
• "They are still getting injured folks out and they are evacuating people from their homes," Waco police Sgt. William Patrick Swanton said early Thursday morning. "At this point, we don't know a number that have been killed. ... I think we will see those fatalities increase as we get toward the morning."
• Among those believe to be dead: A group of volunteer firefighters who responded to a fire call at the West Fertilizer Co. about an hour before the blast. They remained unaccounted for overnight.
• The explosion that struck around 7 p.m. leveled a four-block area around the plant that a member of the city council, Al Vanek, said was "totally decimated." Other witnesses compared the scene to that of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and authorities said the plant made materials similar to that used to fuel the bomb that tore apart that city's Murrah Federal Building.
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