An American Lion

Kleen Energy Plant, Middletown CT

The power plant in Middletown, Connecticut is still being combed for the missing:

An explosion that killed at least five people on Sunday at a power plant in Middletown, Conn., did so much damage that rescue workers searching for victims could not go into part of the sprawling plant, officials said on Monday.

The Middletown deputy fire marshal, Al Santostefano, said the search was suspended around 2:30 a.m. when rescuers realized that one section was an unstable mess of twisted beams and cracked flooring. The mayor of Middletown, Sebastian N. Giuliano, said, “You don’t want the rescuers becoming victims themselves.”

Mr. Santostefano said shortly before 11 a.m. on Monday that he hoped the search would resume in the afternoon, after welders attached metal plates to some support beams inside the plant that were damaged or weakened in the blast. He said that investigators had spent the morning trying to ascertain who had been at work on Sunday and, of them, who remained unaccounted for.

He said investigators believed that about 100 people had been on the job on Sunday at the Kleen Energy Systems plant, which was still under construction. But he said that officials were still checking with subcontractors and even interviewing employees who reported for work on Monday to find out if anyone had been overlooked.

The explosion at 11:17 a.m. on Sunday happened as workers purged natural gas lines in preparation for the plant’s opening later this year.

The explosion shook homes miles away and caused an undue amount of grief for the residents up there.