A large chemical spill in Ohio has grounded all flights within 4,000 square miles and sparked mass evacuations.
Thousands of gallons of nitric acid, a hazardous chemical compound that can irritate eyes, throats and lungs, leaked from a tank at the Austin Powder Red Diamond plant in McArthur on Wednesday morning.
The company produces industrial explosives used for construction and mining purposes. It is unclear how the leak started – but thick orange plumes of smoke were seen billowing across the blue sky in the area.
An immediate evacuation order has been announced by the Vinton County Sheriff’s Office, specifically for Zaleski – a small village in Ohio with a population of 750 locals.
The panic occurred 185 miles east of where the 2023 toxic chemical train derailment happened in East Palestine, which completely devastated the small town.
On Wednesday, the Federal Aviation Administration banned nearly all airlines from flying within 3,700 square miles of airspace and 30 nautical miles near the terrifying spill. Only ‘relief flights’ are allowed in the no-fly zone.
The urgent airspace ban spans across a land mass that is over double the size of Rhode Island.
Dispatchers are currently directing local residents to evacuate their homes and go to the Vinton County High School gym. It could be hours before the air is deemed safe.
The massive leak is coming from a storage tank that holds 5,000 gallons of nitric acid, according to Jackson County Emergency Management.
Robert Czechlewski, Jackson County Emergency Management Director, said 3,000 gallons leaked from the tank.
When nitric acid mixes with the air, it causes a chemical reaction that produces nitric oxide, which creates and orange, brown gas to release.
There are no reports of injuries from the chemical leak.
In addition to feeling irritation in the eyes and nose, people could also feel drowsy and possibly fall unconscious, Brad Price with the Vinton County Health Department said.
Price said anyone exposed to the dangerous chemical should immediately flush out their eyes and clean their skin.
If symptoms worsen, he has urged people to call their primary health care provider for further assistance.
Several local roads are also closed in the area, WBNS reported.
The train disaster in East Palestine, Ohio, two years ago caused chemicals, many of which are known carcinogens, to spill into the soil of the 5,000-person town and the nearby Ohio River.
They also spread through the air in massive ‘really toxic’ smoke plumes,’ which could increase the risk of ‘cancer clusters’ forming, according to the head of the watchdog group.
East Palestine residents are still exposed to a dozen chemicals linked to respiratory issues, fatigue, high blood pressure, leukemia and kidney, lung, liver and brain cancer.
And a recent paper found 540,000 square miles, spanning 16 states, were exposed to traces of volatile chemicals during the disaster.
Over a dozen chemicals were in the rail cars, including several carcinogens.
Vinyl chloride, for example, travels through the blood and gets broken down by the liver into even more toxic chemicals.
Norfolk Southern – the train company that was derailed – agreed to pay $600 million in a class-action lawsuit settlement to the residents of the Ohio town in April of 2024.
And at the beginning of this year, a fresh lawsuit alleged for the first time that people died because of the disastrous 2023 train derailment.
The new litigation contains the first seven wrongful death claims filed against Norfolk Southern railroad – including the death of a 1-week-old baby.
It also alleges the railroad, and its contractors botched the cleanup while officials at the EPA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention signed off on it and failed to warn residents about the health risks.
Many of the other parties in the lawsuit cite lingering, unexplained health problems along with concerns something more serious could develop.