According to local reports Wednesday, a worker was seriously injured in a gas explosion at Burnham, Pennsylvania-based steel processor Standard Steel.
A small fire was extinguished in the employee locker room area of the plant, said Philip Lucas, director of the Mifflin County Office of Public Safety, and the victim was taken to a regional burn ward with serious injuries.
Although the exact cause of the explosion was unknown as of Wednesday, Lucas said that he believes it was a “mechanical failure of some kind,” adding that “it didn't have anything to do with what they do at Standard Steel, it wasn't like, where they melt the steel or anything like that, so in all likelihood it's some kind of gas leak."