Crews find body in La Porte plant hours after lab explosion at A - KiiiTV3.com South Texas, Corpus Christi, Coastal Bend

Courtesy KTRK Houston

LA PORTE, TX (KTRK) -- Crews have recovered a body from the Air Liquide facility in La Porte hours after an explosion in its lab and one worker was reported missing.

According to authorities, the explosion happened just before 7:30am in a lab at an Air Liquide cylinder plant in the 11400 block of West Fairmont Parkway at Driftwood near Bay Area Boulevard.

Between 10 to 20 employees were inside the plant, and soon after it happened, we got word that one worker had been injured and another was missing.

Search crews spent the next several hours searching for him -- until finally, a body was discovered Saturday evening.

"We believe everybody has been accounted for at this point," Air Liquide spokesperson Michael Rosen said.

Dean Hensley with the Harris County Fire Marshal's Office said the medical examiner hasn't yet identified the body. But late Saturday evening, his family says they received word from authorities that 30-year-old Javier Ortiz is the worker that was found dead.

"We just ask for prayers for our family, from Houstonians and for God to help us in this difficult time," his wife, Julie Ortiz said.

She says she and her husband have three children, aged 3, 5, and 7.

"I just want everyone to know he's a wonderful father of three and he's loved very much," she said. "We're very active in our church. We're good people. He's a chemist and I'm a teacher at a high school."

Emergency responders used a canine unit from CyFair Fire Department, heavy equipment and a HAZMAT team to search for him, but the mission wasn't easy. In fact, his body was still buried under the rubble by 10pm Saturday. Investigators say they're having trouble getting it out.

"Just a lot of damage, it's a metal-type structure building. There's a lot of debris and a lot of metal everywhere and we're having to work around that," Hensley said.

A second employee was injured the blast. He was taken by LifeFlight to UTMB's burn unit in Galveston, where his family says he is in critical condition.

"It is my understanding that he (the employee) sustained some burns," Rosen said.

That man's family say he's suffered burns to more than 75 percent of his body, and he's not speaking right now. They say the victim worked at the plant for at least 10 years and has two daughters.

Shelter-in-place orders were issued for La Porte and the southeast portion of Pasadena. According to Harris County Office of Emergency Management officials, the La Porte shelter in place was quickly lifted. The order in Pasadena was lifted by 9:45am.

"Everything's been cooled down. All the contents of the building are secure. At this point, there is some structural damage of the building," Air Liquide Spokesman Michael Rosen said.

Rosen said the plant mixes gases and chemicals for commercial use, and the fire started in the section of the plant where that mixing takes place. La Porte officials have been monitoring air quality and say there was no danger to the public.

"To our knowledge and from the authorities here who have been monitoring the air, nothing was released into the atmosphere except for the smoke you all saw," Rosen explained.

But until all of that was determined, nearby homeowners were on edge.

"It sounded like canons firing. We thought someone was banging on the garage door, a lot of noise and we just ran outside and started panicking," nearby resident Ivan Huerta said.

"You see the black smoke and then you'd see flames come up. And when the flames came up, you would hear a pop right after from either some drums or cylinders popping," nearby resident Ben Aleman said.

Residents now say they are not overly concerned about what happened.

The medical examiner hasn't yet identified the cause of death or a positively identified the body recovered Saturday.

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